E 

302.6 
R3 


IRLF 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


PRESIDENT     REED 


OF 


PENNSYLVANIA, 


A     REPLY    TO 


MR.    GEORGE    BANCROFT    AND    OTHERS, 


"Who,  that  knows  anything  of  literary  history  or  of  society,  cannot  recall  a  number  of  cases, 
when-  slander,  however  liasc  and  baseless,  has  been  believed  to  be  true,  for  no  other  reason  than 
because  it  has  never  been  contradicted?  Nay,  a  calumny  may  have  been  buried  in  obscu 
rity  for  centuries  and  millenaries  and  at  length  some  literary  truffle  dog  will  hunt  it  out;  and, 
if  it  do  but  concern  some  great  man,  the  vulgar  will  pelt  it  at  his  head."— HARE'S  VINDICATION  OF 
NIEBUH*. 


FEBRUARY,    A.  D.    1867. 


SECOND     EDITION, 


PHILADELPHIA: 

HOWARD     CHALLEN,     1308     CHESTNUT    STREET, 
JOHN     CAMPBELL,     740     SANSOM     STREET. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
fi&XZS 


Entered,  according  to   the   Act   of  Congress,  in  the   year  1867, 

BY  WILLIAM  B.  REED, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  in  and  for  th 
Eastern  District  of  Pennsylvania. 


W.  P.  KUDARE,  PKIHTEK. 


INTRODUCTION. 

IT  WILL  be  apparent  to  every  reader  of  the  following 
pages  that  the  historical  materials  they  illustrate  have  not 
been  recently  collected.  Most  of  them  have  been  in  my 
possession  for  many  years,  but  for  reasons  which  I  have 
frankly  stated,  were  not  used.  Indeed,  but  for  Mr.  Ban 
croft's  late  volume,  which  literally  is  the  straw  which 
broke  the  back  of  my  endurance,  they  would  not  be 
used  now.  His  book  however,  renders  it  necessary 
that  I  should  break  my  silence.  To  those  who  think  it 
would  have  been  better  had  I  not  opened  the  whole  sub 
ject  of  the  attacks  on  Mr.  Reed,  but  confined  myself  to 
Mr.  Bancroft's  share  of  them,  I  suggest  that,  dealing  as  I 
am  with  at  least  one  unscrupulous  adversary,  it  would 
be  hazardous  to  leave  for  his  use  the  testimony,  such 
as  it  is,  of  past  times,  and  thus  subject  myself  to  the 
necessity  of  a  rejoinder.  Though  Mr.  Bancroft,  with 
the  exception  of  a  single  and  unaccredited  quotation, 
is  silent  as  to  the  Pamphlets  of  the  last  century,  he 
knows  all  about  them,  and  had  I  answered  the  Donop 
fiction  alone,  he  would  have  brought  them  forward  as  his 
fresh  reserve.  I  had  no  alternative  but  to  discuss 'the 
whole  subject,  and  I  have  endeavoured  to  exhaust  it. 

Chestnut  Hi//,   January,    1867.  W.    B.   REED. 


tory  experiments,  have  gone  so  far  and  assumed  a  shape 
so  precise  as  to  require  notice.  This  was  so  in  one  in 
stance,  within  the  recollection  of  many  of  my  imme 
diate  fellow  citizens.  I  refer  to  a  series  of  anon 
ymous  publications  as  to  General  Reed,  in  the  autumn 
of  1842,  under  the  signature  of  "Valley  Forge," 
in  a  Philadelphia  newspaper.  Though  these  libels  were 
met  so  promptly  and  decisively  as  to  force  an  admission 
that  the  evidence  on  which  they  rested  was  forgery  in 
its  most  flagrant  form;  though  the  infamy  of  the  whole 
affair  recoiled  so  fatally  as  to  destroy  the  paper  in  which 
the  publications  appeared;  though  falsehood  was,  to  the 
eye  of  any  historical  student,  palpable  in  every  line,  and 
the  result  of  detection  proved  it  to  be  so;  there  were 
those  who  read  and  believed  it  all,  and  applauded  the 
agents  of  this  dark  plan  of  detraction.  I  have  no  doubt 
there  are  some  yet  who  are  willing  to  believe  in  what 
was  marked  with  the  stain  of  conceded  fraud,  and  that 
the  "Valley  Forge  forgeries"  are  carefully  preserved  to 
be  revived,  hereafter,  to  vilify  anew  the  character  of 
the  dead,  and  wound  the  affections  of  the  living.  Two 
of  these  spurious  letters  were  re-printed  as  genuine  in 
this  city,  within  the  last  three  years.* 

*  Evening  Bulletin  of  Oftober  izth,  1863.  The  first  communica 
tion  of  "Valley  Forge"  appeared  on  the  I4th  of  September,  the  last 
on  or  about  the  24th  of  October,  1842.  The  Journal  ceased  to  exist 
some  time  during  the  same  winter.  Its  Editor  having  in  vain  endea 
voured  to  ascertain  the  anonymous  writer  who  had  decoyed  him  into 
this  scheme  of  infamy,  voluntarily  surrendered  the  manuscripts  to  the 


5 

It  is  doing  General  Reed's  contemporary  enemies  in 
justice  to  conned:  them  with  assailants  of  this  description. 
Yet  the  association  is  not  mine.  But  for  what  is  known 
as  the  Cadwalader  pamphlet,  the  slanders  of  a  later  day 
would  have  perished  at  their  birth,  it  being  the  practice 
of  the  authors  of  the  new  coinage,  whenever  their  spu 
rious  issue  was  detected,  to  fall  back  on  it;  and  the  argu 
ment  always  has  been,  that  this  pamphlet  was  genuine, 
and  worthy  of  notice  and  reply.  It  is  the  ultimate  reli 
ance,  and  by  an  ingenious  involution  of  the  genuine  and 
the  spurious,  the  ends  of  calumny  have  been  attained,  and 
the  character  of  a  patriot  of  the  Revolution,  a  man  who 
filled,  with  honour,  more  high  public  trusts  than  usually 
are  conferred  on  one,  is  whispered  or  clamoured  away,  in 
the  city  of  his  life  and  fame.  To  all  this,  it  would  be 
affectation  in  me  to  pretend  indifference.  I  have  felt  it, 
and  felt  it  deeply.  With  ample  materials  of  vindication  at 
hand;  with  a  trust  for  the  character  of  the  dead,  which 
seemed  to  press  more  strongly  upon  me  as  I  watched  from 
day  to  day  the  course  and  apparent  fruition  of  these 
schemes  of  detraction,  it  has  been  hard  to  be  silent.  For  a 
long  while,  with  a  determination  not  to  be  dragged,  by  se 
cret  and  anonymous  assailants,  into  possible  controversy 
with  the  living,  I  was  content  to  wait  till  I  should  be  able 
to  submit  to  the  public  a  carefully  digested  mass  of  posi 
tive  evidence,  in  the  form  of  a  biographical  work,  on 

gentlemen  whose  families  had  been  defamed,  and  died  in  May,  1845,  at 
Washington. 


which  my  ancestor's  claim  on  the  gratitude  of  his  coun 
try  might  rest.  My  biography  of  President  Reed  was 
published  in  1847,  and,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge,  was 
kindly  welcomed.  In  one  respect,  especially,  this  ap 
proval  gratified  me,  aside  from  the  pleasure  of  knowing 
that  my  labour  had  not  been  in  vain  to  make  Pennsyl 
vania  proud  of  one  of  her  sons.  It  gratified  me  to  find 
that  my  personal  friends,  and  even  those  who  were  still 
more  disinterested,  approved  of  the  moderation  with 
which  I  discussed  points  of  disputed  politics;  and  of  the 
absence  of  anything  tending  to  give  pain  to  a  living 
being.  I  am  not  aware  of  one  written  word  of  my  own, 
that  was  not  in  a  kind  spirit,  and  in  deference  to  the 
feelings  of  others,  and  this,  too,  with  strong  temptation 
occasionally,  to  speak  out  painful  truth,  let  it  wound 
whom  it  might.  When,  in  my  biography,  I  came  to  the 
Cadwalader  controversy,  I  thus  referred  to  it : 

"Judging  from  the  newspapers  and  pamphlets,  the 
year  1782,  which  found  Mr.  Reed  a  private  citizen,  was 
more  convulsed  by  party  spirit,  raging  apparently  with 
out  restraint,  than  any  previous  period.  The  accredited 
newspaper  organs  of'  the  two  parties  were  filled  with 
articles  of  extreme  ferocity,  directed  at  the  respective 
leaders;  and  towards  Mr.  Reed  especially,  as  one  whose 
mere  resignation  of  authority  did  not  satisfy  his  enemies, 
the  most  intense  animosity  was  manifested.  There  was 
no  stint  to  anonymous  defamation.  On  the  side  of  the 
Constitutionalists  quite  as  able  partisans  were  in  the  field, 


7 

using  their  pens  offensively  as  well  as  defensively. 
Among  them,  one  who  wrote  under  the  name  of  "Va 
lerius,"  and  whose  identity  never  was  clearly  ascertained, 
attracted  great  attention.  The  main  obje6t  of  his  as 
sault,  made  with  great  bitterness  and  eloquence,  was  Mr. 
Dickinson,  who  in  November,  1782,  had  been  elected 
President  by  a  small  majority  over  General  Potter,  the 
Constitutional  candidate.  So  effective  did  these  attacks 
become,  that  Mr.  Dickinson  found  it  necessary  to  an 
swer  them,  and  to  make  an  elaborate  defence  of  his  pub 
lic  conduct,  in  reply  to  this  anonymous  assailant.  It 
would  be  entirely  aside  from  the  aim  of  these  volumes 
to  revive  or  minutely  to  refer  to  such  controversies. 
They  were  in  everv  way  discreditable;  they  may  be  con 
signed  to  the  oblivion  which  has  nearly  overtaken  them, 
and  may  well  be  left  for  the  congenial  research  of  a  class 
of  men,  happily  very  limited,  who  take  a  malignant 
pleasure  in  defaming  the  memory  of  our  Revolutionary 
patriots.  Occasionally,  controversies  of  a  graver  kind 
occurred  at  this  season  of  diseased  excitement.  Of  this 
description  was  one  of  a  very  painful  nature,  which,  in 
the  fall  of  1782,  Mr  Reed  was  involved  in,  with  his  for 
mer  companion-in-arms,  General  John  Cadwalader. 
Pamphlets  of  great  acrimony  were  published  on  each 
side.  These  pamphlets  are  now  before  me,  but  it  is 
most  consonant  with  my  feelings  to  the  living  and  the 
dead,  that  the  controversy  should  be  dismissed  with  thjs 
incidental  reference,  which  its  importance  at  the^time 


8 

seemed  to  require,  and  with  the  expression  of  the  con 
viction  that  had  the  lives  of  the  parties,  and  especialK 
of  him  who  made  the  assault,  been  prolonged,  and  op- 
portunities_such  as  we  now  have,  been  afforded,  of  col 
lating  testimony,  and  allowing  transient  resentments  to 
subside,  the  fierceness  of  the  controversy  would  have 
been  succeeded  by  far  more  amiable  feelings.  But  in 
less  than  three  years  from  its  date  both  parties  were  in 
their  graves/'* 

This  seemed  to  be  the  best  mode  of  treating  a  subject 
which,  in  some  of  its  relations,  was  of  great  delicacy. 
To  omit  all  reference  to  it,  would  have  been  to  give 
colour  to  the  idea  that  I  was  unprepared,  (unwilling  I 
certainly  was,)  to  discuss  it.  To  do  so  in  detail,  would 
be  to  open  anew  a  controversy  long  since  gone  by,  to  ex 
cite  unpleasant  feelings,  and  possibly  to  affect  my  perso 
nal  relations  to  those  with  whom  I  have  always  lived  on 
terms  of  friendliness,  and  to  whom  I  had  no  desire  to 
give  pain.  To  speak  of  it  as  a  subject  on  which,  time, 
had  the  lives  of  the  parties  been  prolonged,  might  have 
shed  a  conciliatory  influence,  and  yet,  as  one,  as  to  which, 
if  forced  into  controversy,  I  had  no  misgiving,  seemed 
to  be  the  true  course.  In  pursuing  it,  I  have  reason  to 
believe  I  had  the  approval  of  all  fair-minded  and  con 
siderate  readers.  Those  only  were  disappointed,  who 


*  Life  of  Reed,  vol.  2,  page  382.     Mr.  Reed  died  March  5th,  1785 
Mr.  Cadwalader,  loth  February,  1786. 


9 

hoped  to  see  the  living  discredited  by  a  revival  of  the 
altercations  of  the  dead. 

No  sooner,  however,  was  the  biography  of  President 
Reed  given  to  the  public — no  sooner  were  kind  words 
of  approval  heard — no  sooner  did  it  seem  certain  that 
his  public  character  and  services  were,  by  the  simple  ex 
position  of  truth,  about  to  be  appreciated  in  Pennsylva 
nia,  and,  throughout  the  country — no  sooner  were  the 
letters  of  Washington,  and  Lafayette,  and  Greene,  and 
Wayne,  and  Henry  Lee,  to  Mr.  Reed  read,  and  his 
actual  position,  as  their  most  valued  and  thoroughly 
trusted  friend,  illustrated  by  evidence,  than  it  was 
thought  necessary,  in  a  sort  of  restless,  mischief-making 
spirit,  to  try  further  experiments  on  public  credulity, 
and  to  burnish  up  ancient  weapons  which  had  nearly 
rusted  in  their  sheaths ;  in  other  words,  to  print  and  cir 
culate  the  Cadwalader  Pamphlet  of  1783.  Of  its  merits, 
I  mean  to  speak  clearly  and  decisively,  so  that  about  it, 
now,  or  hereafter,  there  shall  be  no  misunderstanding. 
A  single  word  as  to  its  various  re-publications,  the  first 
of  which  was  in  1848.  I  was  willing  to  account  for  this 
by  attributing  the  enterprise  to  a  mercenary  motive;  the 
cupidity  of  an  unscrupulous  publisher,  who  hoped,  by 
a  new  edition  of  an  ancient  story,  to  make  a  few  dollars. 
But  I  am  constrained  to  believe,  that  it,  too,  was  the 
fruit  of  secret  and  inveterate  hostility,  to  be  gratified,  at 
any  cost,  and  by  any  means;  in  short,  that  the  authors 
of  the  forgeries  of  1842,  were  again,  in  another  form, 


10 

busy  at  the  secret  work  of  malevolence.  In  this  instance, 
they  were  working  on  genuine  materials.  No  one  ques 
tions  that  General  Cadwalader's  pamphlet  is  genuine,  or 
that  it  involved  charges  by  a  responsible  accuser.  That 
it  did  great  injustice,  and  that  its  allegations  were  ground 
less,  having  their  origin  in  intense  political  animosity, 
and  were  so  interpreted  at  the  time,  it  will  be  my  effort 
to  demonstrate.  The  mode  and  number  of  these  re- 
publications  are  remarkable.  The  first,  in  1848,  was 
printed  in  secret,  with  a  preface  endorsing  and  adopting 
the  forgeries  of  1842,  and,  though  deposited  for  sale  at 
an  obscure  book  store,  with  pains  taken,  as  the  contri 
vers  of  the  scheme  imagined,  to  secure  extensive  circula 
tion.  The  date  of  the  preface  was  "Trenton,  December, 
1 846 ;"  in  point  of  fact  the  pamphlet  was  printed  in  1 848, 
at  Philadelphia.  Why  all  this  indirection;  this  falsify 
ing  of  dates,  had  the  object  been  a  fair  one? — and  why, 
if  the  aim  were  the  mere  correction  of  a  mistake  of  his 
tory,  was  it  necessary  to  distribute  secretly,  thousands 
of  advertising  circulars,  all  carefully  directed  and  pre 
paid  ?  Yet,  this  was  done.  It  seemed  as  if  the  desire 
to  do  me  and  mine  injustice,  was  not  to  be  checked  by 
considerations  of  labour  or  expense.  One  result,  imme 
diately  ensued.  There  was  an  universal  burst  of  indig 
nation,  and  the  faint  whispers  of  approval,  or  excuse, 
were  scarcely  audible.  None,  I  have  reason  to  know, 
were  more  annoyed  by  it  than  General  Cadwalader's  des 
cendants. 


II 

Still,  the  authors  attained  one  object.  They  re-pro 
duced  this  almost  forgotten  pamphlet,  and  a  number  of 
copies  were  put  in  circulation,  enough  at  least,  to  em 
balm  a  painful  controversy,  for  future  and  mischievous 
reference. 

It  was  again  printed,  with  the  forged  documents,  in 
1856.  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  a  new  coinage  of 
calumny  and  perhaps  forgery,  for  they  have  generally 
been  associated,  was  suppressed,  or  withheld  in  conse 
quence  of  the  catastrophe  of  the  Arctic,  in  1854,  and 
the  death  of  my  brother,  Mr.  Henry  Reed.  The  sor 
row,  which  bowed  a  whole  family  to  the  earth,  disarmed, 
for  a  time,  these  secret  and  industrious  artificers  of  evil. 

The  next  revival  of  this  ancient  scandal  was  by  Mr. 
John  C.  Hamilton,  in  the  second  volume  of  his  "History 
of  the  Republic  of  the  United  States  of  America,  as 
traced  in  the  writings  of  Alexander  Hamilton  and  his 
contemporaries;"  a  book  designed,  as  it  were,  to  chrys- 
tallise  around  the  elder  Hamilton,  all  the  great  results, 
and  merits,  and  successes  of  the  Revolution.  Had  the 
author  of  this  grotesque  work  limited  himself  to  the 
illustration  of  the  services  of  his  ancestor,  there  could 
have  been  no  temptation  to  say  a  word  about  Mr.  Reed, 
with  whom,  Mr.  Alexander  Hamilton  had  few,  or  no 
relations  of  any  kind;  but,  as  the  theory  of  the  book 
is,  not  merely,  that  Hamilton  did  everything,  but  that 
no  one  else  did  anything,  the  author  in  his  wide  circuit 
of  disparagement,  gratuitouslv  assailed  Mr.  Reed.  This 


12 

attack  was,  like  every  one  of  the  kind,  wantonly  made,  and 
in  the  absence,  very  well  known,  at  a  vast  distance  on  the 
other  side  of  the  globe,  of  the  only  person  who  could 
repel  it.  How  it  was  subsequently,  on  one  point,  met, 
the  reader  may  see  in  the  correspondence  in  1859,  be- 
tween  Mr.  Hamilton  and  me,  recently  published,  in 
which  he  was  content  to  rest,  as  he  does  still,  under  a  di 
rect  charge  of  having  fabricated  the  date,  and  imagined 
the  contents  of  a  letter,  and  of  having  mis-quoted  one 
document,  and  mis-directed  another,  (New  York  Histor 
ical  Magazine,  December,  1866.)  Though  the  main 
topic  of  Mr.  Hamilton's  ill-natured  comment  is  the  cor 
respondence  in  1776,  with  Charles  Lee,  like  all  the  other 
purveyors  of  this  sort  of  defamatory  rubbish,  he  fell 
back  upon  the  reserve  of  the  Cadwalader  pamphlet. 

In  1863,  it  appeared  again,  cby  subscription/  stealthily 
of  course,  and  though  got  up  at  great  expense,  and, 
printed  in  Albany,  no  place  of  publication,  or  pub 
lisher's  or  printer's  name  is  to  be  found  on  its  pages, 
and  no  one  has  been  willing  to  acknowledge  an  agency 
in  it. 

The  "subscription"  list  for  this  re-issue  must  be  a 
curiosity,  but  like  every  thing  else,  it  is  studiously  con 
cealed.  I  ascertained  who  the  three  individuals  were 
who  acted  as  a  sort  of  'Committee  of  Publication,'  but 
the  ambush  of  the  other  'subscribers'  was  perfect.  This 
re-print  is  catalogued  at  the  Franklin  library  of  this  city 
as  cThe  gift  of  the  Publisher.'  On  my  inquiring  who 


this  was,  the  librarian  informed  me  either  that  he  was 
not  at  liberty  to  say,  or  that  the  person  did  not  wish  his 
name  known.  This  did  not  at  all  surprise  me. 

Last,  in  the  catalogue  of  these  resurrectionists  of  calum 
ny,  is  Mr.   George    Bancroft,  in  the  ninth  volume  of 
his  -History  of  the  Revolution.     I  had  reason  to  look 
for  a  different  treatment  of  the  subject  at  his  hands,  at 
least  so  far  as  this,  that  I   imagined,   in  the  apparent 
friendliness  which  existed,  he  would  have  given  me  an 
opportunity  of  criticism  and  explanation  before  he  ad 
duced  evidence    and    expressed    opinions   so   singularly 
hostile.     But  Mr.  Bancroft  is  the  judge  as  to  his  own 
conduct.     There  were  indications  in  his  eighth  volume 
of  a  disposition  to  disparage  the  services  of  Mr.  Reed, 
but  as  they  were  ambiguous,  and  the  book  came  to  me 
'with  the  Author's  regards/   I   did  not  think  it  worth 
while  to  notice  them.     Not  so,  this  ninth  volume.     It 
fairly  bristles  with  calumny.     Whenever,  and  it  is  quite 
frequently,    Mr.   Reed's  name  is  alluded  to,  there  is  a 
sneer,  or  an  imputation.     He  is  a  'traitor/  (p.  229)  a 
'deserter/   (228)  a  'coward/   (172)  a  'pretender/  (106). 
In  short  he,  and  General  Greene — the  latter  in  a  milder 
form — are  throughout,  the  chief  objects  of  Mr.  Bancroft's 
vituperative  rhetoric.      I  have  sought  in  vain  to  account 
for  this  mischievous  animosity,  and  am  driven  to  attri 
bute  it  to  the  infection  of  the  poisonous  politics  of  this 
our  day,  which  have  acidulated  tempers  and  dispositions 
quite  as  sweet  as  Mr.  Bancroft's  and  Mr.  John  C.  Ham- 


llton's.  Be  all  this  as  it  may,  opinions  thus  expressed, 
and  accusations  so  barbed,  and  venomous,  T  am  com 
pelled  to  notice.  I  shall  consider  them  fairly.  So  far 
as  they  come  directly  within  the  course  of  my  vindica 
tion,  they  shall  be  noticed  in  the  text,  and  when  they  are 
aside  from  it,  in  notes.  No  one  of  these  resuscitated 
slanders  shall  be  intentionally  omitted,  and,  if  I  use  lan 
guage  of  decision,  let  it  be  understood,  there  is  abun 
dant  excuse  in  the  grossness  of  the  provocation. 

That  the  reader  may  have  a  glimpse  of  the  animus  of 
Mr.  Bancroft,  and  that  attention  may  not,  by  and  by,  be 
diverted  from  the  strict  line  of  discussion,  I  pause  here 
to  refer  to  the  manner  in  which  Mr.  Reed's  name  is 
introduced  by  him.  It  is  an  illustration  of  Mr.  Ban 
croft's  spirit  throughout.  Speaking  of  the  negociation 
with  Lord  Howe,  in  1776,  with  the  details  of  which 
every  student  is  familiar,  Mr.  Bancroft  says: 

"Reed,  who  was  already  thoroughly  sick  of  the  contest, 
thought  'the  overture  ought  not  to  be  rejected,'  and  through 
Robert  Morris,  he  offered  'most  cheerfully  to  take  such  a  part 
as  his  situation  and  abilities  would  admit."  (page  40.) 

The  "quotation  marks"  are  Mr.  Bancroft's,  and  the 
reader  will  be  surprised  to  learn  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  in  the  letter  from  which  the  quotation  pretends  to 
be  made.  Mr.  Reed  neither  said  nor  hinted  that  Lord 
Howe's  overture  "ought  not  to  be  rejected,"  nor  did  he 
offer  "to  take  such  a  part"  as  is  suggested.  His  lan 
guage  in  the  letter  to  Mr.  Morris,  is  this:  Mr.  Ban 
croft  actually  mutilating  the  last  sentence. 


15 

"  If  it,  (the  communication)  can  be  improved  in  any  res- 
peel:,  either  to  give  time,  or  discover  the  true  powers  these 
Commissioners  have,  or  in  any  other  way,  I  shall  most  cheer 
fully  take  such  a  part  as  my  situation  and  abilities  will  admit,  and 
as  may  be  directed." 

As  to  "the  rejection  of  the  overture"  Mr.  Bancroft's 
perversion  is  still  more  flagrant.  Mr.  Reed  says: 

"The  Declaration  of  Independence  is  a  new  and  very  strong 
objection  to  entering  into  any  negociation  inconsistent  with  that 
idea.  But  I  fancy  there  are  numbers,  and  some  of  them  firm  in 
the  interests  of  America,  who  would  think  an  overture  ought 
not  to  be  rejected,  and,  if  it  could  be  improved  into  a  negociation 
which  could  secure  the  two  points  mentioned  above,  would  think 
the  blood  and  treasure  well  spent." 

This  is  the  only  reference  to  the  "overture"  or  its 
"rejection"  in  this  letter  or  in  any  other,  from  first  to 
last,  and  certainly  is  that  which  Mr.  Bancroft  alludes  to. 
Mr.  Reed  adds,  and,  with  this  before  him,  Mr.  Bancroft 
undertakes  to  say  "he  was  thoroughly  sick  of  the 
contest." 

"  I  have  no  idea  from  any  thing  I  have  seen  or  can  learn  that 
if  we  should  give  the  General  and  Admiral  a  full  and  fair  hear 
ing,  the  proposition  would  amount  to  any  thing  short  of  uncon 
ditional  submission,  but  it  may  be  worth  considering  whether 
that  once  known  and  all  prospect  of  securing  American  lib 
erty  in  that  way  being  closed,  it  would  not  have  a  happy  effect  to 
unite  us  into  one  chosen  band,  resolved  to  be  free  or  perish  in 
the  attempt." 

This  is  the  herald,  as  it  were,  of  a  series  of  defama 
tory  statements,  each  of  which  I  pledge  myself  to  show 
to  be  unworthy  of  credit.  Mr.  George  Bancroft  has 


i6 

chosen  to  array  himself  with  the  persistent  defamers  of 
my  ancestor,  and  has  a  position  before  the  public  as  an 
ambitious  writer  of  History,  which  makes  it  my  duty  to 
break  the  silence  I  have  so  long  and  so  resolutely 
maintained.  I  propose  now  to  reply  fully  to  these  con 
glomerate  calumnies,  and  to  submit  such  a  defence  of 
General  Reed  as  will,  I  trust,  put  them  to  rest  at  once, 
and  forever. 

I  begin  of  course  at  the  "origo  mali"  the  controversy 
of  the  last  Century. 

The  Cadwalader  controversy  was  in  the  year  1782-3, 
more  than  six  yea^s  after  the  incidents  in  which  it  is 
supposed  to  have  had  its  origin,  are  said  to  have  occurred. 
In  determining  the  relative  attitude  of  the  parties  to 
this  unfortunate  difficulty,  I  have  no  professions  of 
absolute  impartiality  to  make,  while  I  do  not  distrust 
my  ability  to  do  justice  to  Mr.  Cadwalader,  and  to  see 
defects  of  character,  or  temper,  or  conduct  in  my  ances 
tor.  With  due  allowance  for  strong  filial  feeling,  it 
seems  to  me  the  subject  may,  without  much  effort,  be 
considered  in  a  very  temperate  spirit.  I  mean  to  try  so 
to  treat  it. 

General  Cadwalader  was  a  Philadelphian  by  birth,  and 
according  to  the  best  information  I  have,  a  man  of 
easy  fortune.  In  the  patriotic  movements  at  the  begin 
ning  of  the  colonial  troubles,  he  took  an  active  part. 
He,  and  his  brother  Lambert,  were  members  of  the 
Provincial  Convention  of  1775,  and  both  held  commis- 


I? 

sions  in  the  military  corps  organized  by  Pennsylvania, 
in  1776.  They  were  brave,  high  spirited  men.  Colonel 
Lambert  Cadwalader  was  made  prisoner  at  Fort  Wash 
ington,  and  never  afterwards  entered  active  service.  In 
the  campaign  of  1776,  John  Cadwalader  commanded  a 
Pennsylvania  regiment,  but  was  not,  I  believe,  in  the 
field  till  December  of  that  year,  when  he  was  stationed 
with  a  body  of  about  fifteen  or  eighteen  hundred  men,  at 
Bristol.  He  remained  with  the  army  till  after  the  battle 
of  Princeton.  In  January,  1777,  Washington  recom 
mended  him  for  military  promotion.  In  February, 
Congress  appointed  him  one  of  the  new  Biigadier  Gen 
erals,  a  post  which  he  declined  accepting,  as  "he  con 
ceived  the  war  was  near  a  conclusion."  He  never  was 
regularly  in  service  afterwards.  In  the  winter  of  1777-8 
Cadwalader  and  Reed  joined  Washington,  as  volunteers, 
and  were  with  him,  counselling  and  aiding  in  the  opera 
tions  near  Philadelphia.  In  December,  1777,  on  being 
offered  a  post  in  the  Pennsylvania  line,  Cadwalader  re 
fused  to  accept  it,  and  in  June,  or  July,  1778,  fought  his 
duel  with  Conway.  The  two  Philadelphia  soldiers  were 
again  volunteers  with  Washington  at  Monmouth.  In 
September,  Congress,  at  the  instance  of  a  Committee,  of 
•  which  Mr.  Reed  was  Chairman,  offered  Cadwalader  a 
Cavalry  command;  this  also,  he, then  residing  with  his 
family  in  Maryland,  declined.  Except  a  short  period 
of  service  in  the  Maryland  Legislature,  he  never,  after 
wards,  was  other  than  a  private  man.  This  is,  I  believe, 

2 


a  fair  summary  of  General  Cadwalader's  services.  During 
the  greater  part  of  the  War,  he  resided  on  his  estate  in 
Maryland,  occasionally  visiting  Philadelphia,  to  share  in 
the  fierce  political  broils  which  so  long  distracted  this 
community. 

Of  Mr.  Reed's  career,  from  July  1775,  wnen  ne 
joined  Washington  on  his  way  to  Cambridge,  till  his 
term  of  office  as,  President  of  Pennsylvania  ended  in 
1781,  I  do  not  feel  it  necessary  to  say  a  word.  The 
record  of  his  public  services  is  before  the  world,  and, 
this,  certainly  may  be  said  of  it,  that  there  was  not  a 
year  or  a  day,  in  which,  for  the  public  cause,  he  was  not 
making  some  effort  or  sacrifice,  and  earning  from  his 
countrymen,  and  especially  his  fellow-soldiers,  gratitude 
in  its  strongest  and  most  sincere  expression.  Though, 
like  Cadwalader,  he  declined  Continental  rank,  unlike 
him,  he  thought  it  a  duty  to  forego  speculative  objec 
tions  to  a  frame  of  local  government,  and  to  take  office 
and  discharge  public  duty  under  the  Constitution  of 
Pennsylvania.  When  appointed  Chief  Justice  in  1777, 
he  declined  office;  when  elected  to  the  Presidency  in 
1778,  he  accepted  it,  and  Washington  "very  sincerely" 
rejoiced.  Who  was  right,  and  who  wrong,  no  one 
now  doubts.  We  know  what  judgment  was  formed  and 
expressed  by  Mr.  Reed's  contemporaries  who  had  a  deep 
interest  in  the  question;  as  I  have  said,  by  Washing 
ton,  and  by  Wayne,  and  Greene,  and  Henry  Lee.  The 
student  of  our  history  will,  we  think,  agree  in  the  opin- 


'9 

ion  which  has  elsewhere  been  expressed,  that  it  was  well 

for  the  general  cause,  that  at  the  most  critical  periods  of 
the  war,  in  1779,  1780,  and  1781,  when  the  heaviest 
burthens  rested  on  the  Middle  Colonies,  a  man  so  full 
of  energy,  and  intellectual  resources,  as  Mr.  Reed,  was 
in  Executive  office  in  Pennsylvania.  The  more  this 
period  of  our  history  is  studied,  the  brighter  will  his  re 
cord  be.  It  was  Pennsylvania  that  nobly  sustained  the 
general  cause,  and  he  was  the  guiding  and  animating 
spirit  of  her  executive  councils.  It  was  a  poor  return 
for  all  he  did  and  sacrificed,  to  be  at  the  end,  assailed 
by  those  who,  while  he  was  toiling  and  wearing  away 
a  feeble  constitution  in  public  service,  were  living  in 
seclusion  and  luxury. 

The  year  1782  found  Reed  and  Cadwalader  private 
citizens.  The  state  of  local  affairs  I  cannot  better  des 
cribe  than  I  already  have  in  the  Memoir  which  has  been 
given  to  the  public.  The  scene  was  a  very  sad  one. 

On  the  7th  of  September,  1782,  there  appeared  in 
the  columns  of  the  "Independent  Gazetteer,"  the  organ 
of  the  Anti-Constitutional  party  of  Pennsylvania,  the 
following  publication,  dated  the  jd. : 

1.  Was  not  General  R — d,  in  December,  1776,  (then  A- 1 

G 1  of  the  continental  army),  sent  by  General  Washington 

to  the   commanding  officer  at   Bristol,  with  orders  relative  to  a 
general    attack,  intended  to  be    made  on  the  enemy's  post  at 
Trenton  and  those  below  on  the  25th,  at  night  ? 

2.  Two  or  three  days  before  the  intended  attack  did  not  Gen 
eral  R — d  say,  in  conversation  with  the  said  commanding  officer, 


20 

at  his  quarters,  that  our  affairs  looked  very  desperate,  and  that 
we  were  only  making  a  sacrifice  of  ourselves  ? 

3.  Did   he   not   also   say,  that   the   time   of  General    Howe's 
proclamation    offering    pardon   and   protection   to   persons   who 
should  come  in  before  the  ist  of  January,  1777,  was  nearly  ex 
pired  ;  and  that  Galloway,  the  Allen's  and  others  had  gone  over 
and  availed  themselves  of  the  pardon  and  protection  offered  by 
the  said  proclamation  ? 

4.  Did  not  he,  (general  R — d,  at  the  same  time  say,  that  he 
had  a  family  and  ought  to  take  care  of  them ;  and  that  he  did 
not   understand   following  the   wretched   remains   of   a   broken 
army  ? 

5.  Did  he  not  likewise  say  to  the  said  commanding  officer, 
that  his  brother  (then  a  colonel  or  lieutenant  colonel  .of  militia) 
was  at  Burlington  with  his  family,  and  that  he  had  advised  him 
to  remain  there,  and  if  the  enemy  took  possession  of  the  town, 
to  take  a  protection  and  swear  allegiance  ?     It  is  well  for  Amer 
ica  that  very  few  general  officers  have  reasoned  in  this  manner ; 
if  they  had,  General  Howe  would  have  made  an  easy  conquest  of 
the  United  States.     And  it  is  very  obvious,  that  officers  of  high 
rank  with  such  sentiments,  can  have  no  just  pretensions  to  pat 
riotism  or  public  virtue ;  and  can  by  no  means  be  worthy  of  any 
post  of  honour  or  place  of  trust  where  the  liberties  and  interests 
of  the  people  are  immediately  concerned. 

BRUTUS. 

Philadelphia,  September  3,  1782. 

This  was  an  anonymous  publication,  and  no  one  ever 
avowed  the  authorship  of  it.  General  Cadwalader  ex 
pressly  disclaimed  it.  The  newspapers  of  the  day  at 
tribute  it  to  Doctor  Benjamin  Rush,  and,  as  he  subse 
quently  made  himself  a  chief  witness  in  support  of  the 
accusation  against  Mr.  Reed,  was  bitterly  hostile  to 
him,  and  was  addicted  to  this  mode  of  secret  assault; 


21 

there  is  reason  for  attributing  to  his  busy  pen,  the  initia 
tion  of  this  wretched  controversy.  The  "Brutus"  of 
1782,  after  involving  two  gentlemen  in  angry  dispute, 
never  came  from  his  ambush.  So  far  as  he  is  concerned, 
it  was  a  stab  in  the  dark. 

Instantly,  on  its  publication,  Mr.  Reed  addressed  a 
note  to  General  Cadwalader,  enquiring  if  he  were  the 
author,  and  asserting,  without,  however,  any  personal 
imputation,  the  falsehood  of  the  hinted  accusation.  To 
this,  on  the  loth  of  September,  Cadwalader  replied,  de- 
n)ing  that  he  was  "Brutus,"  but  re-asserting  the  charges 
in  a  form  quite  as  offensive.  On  the  nth,  the  follow 
ing  card  appeared  in  the  journals  of  the  day: 

"To  THE  PUBLIC." 

Satiated  with  public  business,,  and  the  honours  which  are  sup 
posed  to  attend  it;  no  candidate  for  office  or  appointment  of  any 
kind,  it  was  my  wish  to  live  a  private  and  peaceable  citizen. 
But  it  seems  the  sacrifice  of  no  small  portion  of  my  time  and 
fortune  is  not  sufficient,  without  a  sacrifice  of  character  also. 
A  set  of  men  in  this  city,  uninjured  and  unprovoked  by  me,  are 
weekly  pouring  forth  some  abuse  under  anonymous  signatures, 
and  in  a  late  paper  it  is  insinuated  under  a  number  of  queries 
that  in  the  year  1776  I  meditated  an  abandonment  of  the  cause 
of  my  country,  and  desertion  to  the  enemy  and  communicated 
such  intention  to  the  commanding  officer  at  Bristol.  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  pronounce  it  an  infamous  falsehood,  and  with  sin 
cerity  and  upon  the  honour  of  a  gentleman,  solemnly  declare  no 
such  conversation  as  alluded  to  in  these  queries  ever  passed,  of 
which,  I  hope  in  a  few  days  to  exhibit  the  most  satisfactory 
proof,  the  nature  of  the  case  admits  of. 

JOSEPH  REED. 


22 

After  a  sharp  personal  correspondence,  Mr.  Reed  re 
deemed  the  pledge  of  submitting  his  case  to  the  public 
judgment,  and  in  November,  1782,  published  a  pamph 
let  with  which  every  historical  student  is  familiar.  It 
has  been  but  once  re-printed  in  the  long  interval  of 
eighty-five  years,  and  but  for  the  fear  of  expanding  this 
publication  too  much,  I  should  be  glad  to  re-produce  it, 
and  let  an  injured  man,  as  it  were  from  the  grave,  speak 
for  himself.  I  am  conscious  of  no  little  pride  in  the 
earnest  eloquence  and  high  literary  ability  of  this  defence. 
My  vindication  is  really  supplementary.  In  the  early 
part  of  1783,  the  Cadwalader  pamphlet  appeared  in  reply 
to  Mr.  Reed.  Before  considering  it,  and  the  evidence 
it  is  supposed  to  contain,  as  I  shall  do  fully,  and,  I  hope 
conclusively,  I  desire  to  give  to  the  world  some  con 
temporaneous  testimony,  of  the  good  and  brave  men  of 
those  days  of  trial,  as  to  the  merits  of  the  controversy  as 
presented  by  the  parties  themselves.  I  have  in  my 
possession  many  letters  of  this  kind.  It  would  extend 
this  publication  too  much,  were  I  to  print  them  all.  I 
therefore  content  myself  with  two — from  a  gallant  soldier 
of  the  Revolution,  him  whom  Washington  most  cher 
ished  and  trusted — the  Marcellus  of  our  infant  story, 
whose  friendship  for  Mr.  Reed,  from  the  time  they  met 
within  the  lines  of  Cambridge,  never  abated  nor  was  inter 
rupted.  With  any  fair-minded  man,  it  would  conclude  all 
question  as  to  Mr.  Reed's  fidelity  to  the  cause  of  his  coun 
try.  I  make  extracts  from  the  originals  in  my  possession. 


GENERAL  GREENE  TO  CHARLES  PETTIT. 

Charleston,  April  3,  1783. 

*  *  *  I  have  seen  Governor  Reed's  publication.  I  think  it 
an  excellent  performance,  and  it  is  much  admired.  On  almost 
every  question,  I  could  give  the  fullest  confirmation,  so  far  as  my 
opinion  can  have  weight.  The  attempt  to  traduce  him,  as  hav 
ing  a  design  to  go  over  to  the  enemy,  is  truly  wicked.  General 
Cadwalader  never  had  such  a  thought.  I  am  persuaded  nothing 
but  party  rage  could  induce  him  to  countenance  such  an  insinua 
tion.  No  man  in  America  had  so  good  an  opportunity  to  know 
Governor  Reed's  sentiments  and  intentions  as  I  had,  and  I  know 
at  the  time  they  urge  suspicions,  he  was  urging  the  enterprise  at 
Trenton,  as  he  says.  And  as  to  the  arguments  founded  upon 
his  not  taking  the  oaths,  they  are  as  ridiculous  as  they  are  wicked. 
He  was  opposed  to  the  Constitution,  and  in  hopes  of  getting  some 
alterations  in  it  was  the  reason  why  he  did  not  take  the  oaths  to 
the  state.  Was  there  not  a  great  part  of  the  principal  men  in  the 
state  in  the  same  predicament?  Their  objection  was  not  to  the 
cause  b.ut  the  Constitution.  It  was  my  advice  to  him  and  Gen 
eral  Cadwalader,  both,  to  take  up  the  Constitution  as  it  was ;  and 
as  the  people  would  have  more  confidence  in  them,  they  might 
form  it  as  they  pleased.  A  measure  of  this  sort  would  have  re 
conciled  and  united  all  parties,  and  I  am  persuaded  this  was  Gov 
ernor  Reed's  intention  in  taking  upon  him  the  charge  of  govern 
ment.  We  had  frequent  conversations  together,  to  this  efFect. 
The  abuse  and  scurrility  thrown  out  against  him,  betray  so  much 
rancour  and  malice,  that  it  destroys  itself.  He  will  live  beloved 
and  respected  by  every  good  man  and  friend  to  his  country,  in 
spite  of  all  they  can  say  to  his  prejudice.  His  good  sense  and 
natural  resources  will  support  him,  when  his  enemies  shall  not 
dare  to  show  their  heads.  *  *  *  * 

On  the  2jrd  of  April,  1783,  Greene  wrote  directly  to 
Mr.  Reed. 

Headquarters,  April  23,  1783. 

I  thank  you  for  the  pamphlet  you  sent  me.  I  had  read  it  be 
fore,  and  have  the  pleasure  to  assure  you  it  is  much  admired. 


Everybody  reads  it  with  pleasure  and  convi&ion.  I  wish  I  had 
been  in  Philadelphia.  I  would  have  given  you  all  the  support 
my  little  influence  might  have  had.  I  am  better  acquainted  with 
the  history  of  your  conduct  than  any  other  person.  The  insinu 
ation  of  your  intention  to  desert  over  to  the  enemy  is  infamous, 
and  I  am  sure  General  Cadwalader  never  entertained  such  an 
idea,  nor  would  have  asserted  such  a  thing,  but  from  the  influences 
of  party  rage.  Indeed,  I  think  Philadelphia  has  something  in 
fatuating  in  its  air.  No  character  escapes  abuse,  and  the  inno 
cent  as  well  as  the  guilty  are  all  arraigned  as  party  or  spleen  di 
rects.  Good  God !  what  will  this  lead  to.  I  would  sooner  be 
an  honest  plowman  than  a  public  officer  upon  such  terms.* 

Again  in  November,  1783,  months  after  the  Cadwal 
ader  publication,  when  Mr.  Reed  visited  England, 
Greene,  standing  faithfully  by  his  ancient  friend,  wrote 
to  Lafayette. 

Philadelphia^  Nov.  9,  1783. 
"DEAR  MARQUIS: 

This  will  be  handed  you  by  my  good  friend,  Governor  Reed, 
whose  merit  and  active  zeal,  you  are  perfectly  well  acquainted 
with.  Nor,  can  you  be  ignorant  of  the  ungenerous  measures 
which  have  been  taken  here  to  lessen  his  public  estimation. 
Every  man  who  has  the  pleasure  of  his  acquaintance  must  feel 
an  honest  indignation  at  the  unmerited  treatment  he  has  met 
with ;  and  a  pleasing  satisfaction  that  his  abilities  will  triumph 
over  party  and  faction." 

To  Rochambeau,  and  D'Estaing,  he  wrote  in  the  same 
strain  of  earnest  affection.  Mr.  Reed's  infirm  health 

*  This  letter,  with  the  exception  of  one  passage,  was  published  in 
my  Life  of  Reed,  vol.  2,  page  395.  The  passage  relating  to  General 
Cadwalader  was  omitted,  from  the  feeling  which,  throughout,  controlled 
me,  of  trying  to  avoid  giving  pain. 


prevented  him  from  visiting  the  continent  and  delivering 
these  letters ;  and,  for  this  reason,  they  have  remained  in 
my  possession.  The  student  of  our  history  need  not  be 
toki  how  valuable  this  voluntary  testimony  of  General 
Greene  is.  It  was  his  fortune  to  pass  through  the  war 
without  a  reproach.  He  shared  in  the  early  reverses  and 
final  triumphs  of  the  Revolution.  He  had,  throughout, 
Washington's  affectionate  confidence.  He  was  actively 
engaged  in  the  military  operations  on  the  Delaware,  in 
1776,  and,  knowing  better  than  any  one  else,  Mr.  Reed's 
conduct,  at  the  moment  when  he  was  charged  with  dis 
affection  pronounced  the  insinuation  'infamous.'  Is  it, 
I  pause  to  ask,  this  fidelity  to  Mr.  Reed  which  now  at 
tracts  Mr.  Bancroft's  animosity  to  General  Greene — or 
is  it  that  he  gained  his  highest  laurels  on  fields  of  south 
ern  victory,  and,  leaving  New  England,  sought  a  south 
ern  home,  and  died  a  southern  man? 

Greene  in  another  letter  to  Mr.  Reed,  in  1782,  said: 
cThe  ingratitude  you  have  been  treated  with  by  a  party 
in  Philadelphia,  and  by  some  of  the  officers  of  the  army, 
serves  but  to  disgust  me  with  public  life,  and  as  a  lesson 
of  the  inconstancy  of  human  creatures.  The  State  of 
South  Carolina  has  treated  me  very  differently.  They 
have  voted  me  their  thanks  unanimously,  accompanied 
with  a  vote  vesting  me  with  an  estate  of  10.000  guineas. 
No  people,  I  believe,  ever  felt  a  stronger  impulse  of 
gratitude.  Commissioners  are  appointed  to  make  the 
purchase.  This,  with  the  shattered  remains  of  my  little 


fortune,  will  lay  the  foundation  for  a  decent  support  in 
the  decline  of  life.  The  measure  is  new  in  the  politics 
of  America,  and  it  will  soon  become  public.  Please  let 
me  know  what  animadversions  are  made  upon  it,  partic 
ularly  by  the  delegates  and  people  of  New  England/ 

What  the  contemporaneous  public  thought  of  these 
controversies  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that,  in  the 
short  remnant  of  Mr.  Reed's  life,  his  close  and  confiden 
tial  relations  with  the  best  and  purest  men  of  our  coun 
try,  and  especially  of  Pennsylvania,  continued  unimpaired; 
abroad,  with  Mr.  Adams,  and  Mr.  Jay,  and  Mr.  Laurens, 
at  home  with  George  Bryan  and  Jonathan  Dickinson 
Sergeant  and  Clement  Biddle,  and  James  Hutchinson, 
and  John  Bayard,  and  Jared  Ingersoll,  and  especially, 
with  William  Bradford,  (afterwards  Washington's  Attor 
ney  General,)  whom  Mr.  Reed  drew  from  retirement  to 
place  in  high  positionj  and  who  repaid  the  kindness  by 
an  affectionate  friendship  which  never  intermitted. 

After  the  Cadwalader  pamphlet,  Mr.  Reed  was  chosen 
by  the  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania  to  conduct,  at  Trenton, 
the  Wyoming  controversy,  as  the  colleague  of  Mr.  Brad 
ford,  Mr.  Sergeant,  and  Mr.  Wilson,  and  on  the  i6th 
of  April,  1784,  the  following  minute  of  the  Assembly, 
attests  the  public  estimation,  in  which,  to  the  latest  hour 
of  his  life,  in  spite  of  all  the  defamation  which  party 
fury  had  hurled  at  him,  he  was  held.  One  of  the  sure 
re-actions  in  politics  had  occured,  since  1782.  The  pro- 
scriptive  'Republicans,'  such  was  the  party  name  then, 


had  been  defeated  at  the  polls,  and  the  'Constitution 
alists'  were  again  in  the  ascendant. 

"  Agreeably  to  the  order  of  the  day  the  house  proceeded  to  the 
ele&ion  of  Delegates  to  represent  the  State  in  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  for  the  ensuing  year ;  and  the  ballots  being 
taken  it  appeared  that  the  Honourable  Joseph  Reed,  Cadwala- 
der  Morris,  William  Montgomery,  Joseph  Gardner  and  William 
Henry,  of  Lancaster,  Esquires,  were  duly  elected.  'I  have,' 
wrote  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  'further  to  express  the  earnest 
desire  of  the  House,  that  you  repair  as  soon  as  possible  to  Tren 
ton,  to  meet  with  Congress,  that  this  State  may  be  represented 
in  that  honourable  body." 

But,  as  I  have  elsewhere  said,  this  honour,  the  just 
reward  of  public  service,  came  too  late.  The  hand  of 
death  was  upon  him.  In  December,  1783,  his  will  is 
dated,  and,  there,  will  be  found  the  almost  dying  words 
with  which  he  repelled  these  dark  accusations. 

"  My  situation  in  life  has  made  me  the  object  of  much  envy,  cal 
umny  and  reproach  ;  I  therefore,  on  this  solemn  occasion,  declare 
that  any  charge  of  infidelity  to  my  country,  correspondence  with 
the  enemy,  injustice  to  the  State,  or  individuals,  which  has  been 
made  against  me,  is  false.  I  served  my  country  with  fidelity, 
and  usefulness,  as  General  Washington's  and  General  Greene's 
numerous  letters  will  testify.  I  served  Pennsylvania,  in  partic 
ular,  to  the  very  great  injury  of  my  family,  but  with  equal  integ 
rity,  disclaiming  all  offers  and  opportunities  of  serving  myself. 
If  the  State  will  allow  for  the  depreciation  of  my  salary  during 
my  administration,  and  also  .£193  which  I  forfeited  as  a  purcha 
ser  of  a  State  Island  lot,  but  which  was  never  exacted  from  any 
other  purchaser  who  failed  in  payment,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  it. 
I  desire  that  there  may  be  no  pompous  funeral,  but  quite  plain, 


as  nearly  like  those  in  1776  as  possible,  and  to  be  laid  by  my 
wife.  If  I  am  of  consequence  enough  for  a  funeral  sermon,  I 
desire  it  may  be  preached  by  my  old  friend  and  instructor  Mr. 
Duffield,  in  Arch  street,  the  next  Sunday  after  my  funeral.  And 
now  I  close  this  serious  business  and  shall  meet  death  with  com 
posure,  having  no  other  concern  than  for  my  children,  whost 
interests  I  have  too  much  neglected  for  the  service  of  the 'public  ^ 
however  I  recomn^end  them  to  the  care  of  Providence  and  the 
kindness  of  friends." 

Mr.  Reed  died  in  March,  1785.  "I  never"  wrote 
General  Richard  Butler,  "saw  so  great  a  number  of  peo 
ple  at  one  funeral  in  America."  All  orders,  classes  and 
parties,  united  in  paying  him  the  last  honours.  The 
officers  of  the  army;  the  Militia  of  the  city;  the  Assem 
bly  and  Executive  Council,  with  the  President,  Mr. 
Dickinson,  (once  a  political  adversary,)  with  a  large  con 
course,  ^ollowed  him  to  the  grave. 

It  is  this  man,  thus  honoured  to  the  last  hour  of  his 
life,  and  thus,  in  death  lamented,  whom,  I,  his  grandson, 
am  called  upon  to  vindicate  against  a  charge  of  deep  dis 
honour,  suggested  whilst  he  was  living,  and  revived  by 
the  busy  artificers  of  slander,  eighty  years  after  he  died. 

This  vindication  I  proceed  to  make: 

The  pamphlet  of  1783  contains  two  charges,  one  ex 
pressly  made,  and  one,  very  directly  insinuated. 

i.  That  in  December,  1776,  Mr.  Reed,  in  extreme 
despondency,  thought  of  making  his  peace  with  the  ene 
my  by  accepting  the  terms  offered  by  their  Commission 
ers,  and,  so  said  to  General  Cadwalader. 


29 

2.  That,  with  that  view,  he  entered  into  a  correspon 
dence  of  a  treasonable  character  with  Count  Donop,  the 
Hessian  Commander  of  the  outposts  in  New  Jersey. 

As  to  the  first,  it  will  be  observed  that  the  only  direct 
evidence  adduced  is  that  of  General  Cadwalader  himself, 
his  double  brother-in-law,  Philemon  Dickerson,  John 
Nixon,  and  Doctor  Benjamin  Rush.  All  the  others, 
Jacob  Rush,  Joseph  Ellis,  Davenport,  Bradford,  David 
Lenox,  and  Nichols,  merely  tell  hearsay  gossip — what 
other  people  told  them.  How  little  value  should  be  at 
tached  to  such  testimony,  will  appear  from  a  contradic 
tion,  now  for  the  first  time  in  print,  I  am  able  to  give 
one  of  them — Mr.  Bradford.  Bradford's  certificate,  pub 
lished  by  General  Cadwalader,  is  this: 

"These  are  to  certify,  that,  in  December  1776,  and  January 
1777,  I,  the  subscriber,  was  Major  of  the  second  battalion  of 
Philadelphia  Militia,  whereof  John  Bayard  was  Colonel,  and  then 
lay  at  Bristol,  and  part  of  the  time  opposite  Trenton,  on  the  Penn 
sylvania  side.  That  while  we  lay  at  Bristol,  Joseph  Reed,  Esq., 
joined  us ;  that,  during  his  being  there  and  near  Trenton,  he  often 
went  out  for  intelligence,  as  Colonel  Bayard  told  me,  over  to 
Burlington,  in  which  place  the  enemy  frequently  were;  that, 
being  absent  frequently  all  day  and  all  night,  I  as  frequently  en 
quired  what  could  become  of  General  Reed.  Colonel  Bayard 
often  answered  me,  he  feared,  he  had  left  us  and  gone  over  to 
the  enemy.  One  time  in  particular,  being  absent  two  days  and 
two  nights,  if  not  three  nights,  Colonel  Bayard  came  to  me  with 
great  concern,  and  said  he  was  fully  persuaded  General  Reed 
was  gone  to  join  the  enemy  and  make  his  peace.  I  asked  how 
he  could  possibly  think  so  of  a  man  who  had  taken  so  early  a 
part  and  had  acted  steadily.  He  replied,  he  was  persuaded  it 


3° 

was  so,  for  he  knew  the  General  thought  it  was  all  over,  and 
that  we  could  not  stand  against  the  enemy,  and  at  the  same  time 
wept  much.  I  endeavoured  all  I  could  to  drive  such  notions 
from  him,  but  he  was  so  fully  persuaded  that  he  had  left  us  and 
gone  over  to  the  enemy,  that  arguing  about  the  matter  was 
only  loss  of  time.  Colonel  Bayard  often  making  mention,  that 
he  knew  his  sentiments  much  better  than  I  did.  After  being 
absent  two  or  three  nights,  General  Reed  returned,  and  I  never 
saw  more  joy  expressed  than  was  by  Colonel  Bayard ;  he  decla 
ring  to  me  he  was  glad  General  Reed  was  returned,  for  he  was 
fully  convinced,  in  his  own  mind,  that  he  was  gone  over  to  the 

enemy.* 

WILLIAM    BRADFORD. 
March  15,  1783. 


*  Mr.,  or  Major  Bradford,  who  gives  this  certificate,  was  William 
Bradford,  the  elder.  His  two  sons  were  Thomas,  a  printer  and  pub 
lisher,  and  William,  Attorney.  General  of  Pennsylvania,  in  1780,  after 
wards  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  in 
1795,  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States  in  the  Washington  admin 
istration,  Mr.  Reed's  intimate  friend,  one  of  the  executors  of  his 
will  and  guardian  of  his  children.  He  wrote  the  laudatory  inscrip 
tion  on  Mr.  Reed's  tombstone.  In  Mr.  Bradford's  will,  now  before 
me,  dated  in  1788,  this  passage  occurs:  "In  remembrance  of  the  friend 
ship  and  patronage  I  experienced  from  Joseph  Reed,  Esquire,  in  his 
lifetime,  I  give  and  devise  to  such  of  his  children,  as  shall  be  alive  at 
the  time  of  my  decease,  and  to  their  heirs,  a  tra6l  of  land  in  Northum 
berland  County,  containing  1005  acres,  granted  to  me  by  patent;  also, 
the  sum  of  £1000,  payable  in  certificates,  at  the  discretion  of  my  ex 
ecutors,  and  the  farther  sum  of  £150,  payable  in  one  year  after  my  de 
cease."  This,  and  all  other  of  Mr.  Bradford's  testamentary  dispositions, 
were  rendered  nugatory  by  the  adjudication  in  the  well  known  and  re 
ported  case  of  Bradford  vs.  Boudinot,  2  Dallas1  Reports,  266,  2  Yeates, 
170,  in  which  Doftor  Rush  was  the  chief  witness  against  the  wills. 
Air.  Thomas  Bradford,  who  inherited,  as  heir  at  law,  belonged  to  a  dif 
ferent  school  of  politics,  was  the  intimate  friend  of  Doftor  Rush,  and 
the  printer  of  the  Cadwalader  pamphlet.  He  lived  to  a  very  advanced 
age,  dying  in  1837.  The  brothers  were  not  on  friendly  terms. 


Among  Mr.  Reed's  papers  I  find  the  following 
affidavit,  which  speaks  for  itself,  being  that  of  a  man, 
whose  high  character  in  public  and  private  life  is  well 
known  in  this  community.  A  more  emphatic  and  pre 
cise  denial  could  hardly  be  framed.  It  is  dated  the  5th  of 
December,  1783 — of  course  after  the  Cadwalader  pam 
phlet  appeared. 

"Whereas  Mr.  William  Bradford,  Senior,  heretofore  a  Major 
in  the  Second  Battalion  of  Philadelphia  Militia,  under  my  com 
mand,  hath,  in  a  pamphlet  published  by  General  Cadwalader,  cer 
tified  that  I  frequently  communicated  to  him  suspicions  of  the 
fidelity  of  General  Reed,  in  the  winter  of  the  year  1776,  and 
apprehensions  of  his  being  gone  to  the  enemy ;  that  he  despaired 
of  the  American  cause,  and  that  I  knew  his  sentiments  on  the 
subject.  I  do  hereby  declare  that  I  never  entertained  a  doubt  of 
the  fidelity  of  General  Reed,  or  the  least  suspicion  of  his  intend 
ing  to  join  the  enemy ;  and  further,  that  in  the  most  private  and 
intimate  conversations,  he  never  expressed  to  me  a  sentiment  of 
that  kind  or  discovered  that  despondency  which  would  lead  me  to 
draw  such  a  conclusion.  I  well  remember  my  often  expressing 
my  concern  and  anxiety  at  his  and  Colonel  Cox's  frequent  visits 
to  Burlington,  and  my  apprehensions  that  they  would  either  be 
betrayed  by  the  inhabitants  or  surprised  and  taken  by  the  enemy. 
I  expostulated  with  him  on  this  head  more  than  'once.  His  an 
swer  was  to  me,  that  he  knew  the  people  and  could  depend  upon 
them,  and  that  our  situation  required  constant  and  daily  intelli 
gence.  My  frequent  mention  of  the  uneasiness  I  was  under  on 
this  occasion,  may  have  been  misunderstood  by  Major  Bradford. 

The  justice  due  to  a  much  injured  character  has  led  me  to 
give  this  counter  certificate."  JOHN  BAYARD.* 

*  "John  Bayard,  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Inspection,  for  the 
County  of  Philadelphia,  a  patriot  of  singular  purity  of  character  and 


Still,  there  remains  what  may  be  called  the  positive 
testimony,  and  to  it,  I  direct  my  attention;  and,  first,  to 
that  of  General  Cadwalader  himself,  which  it  is  best  to 
give  in  his  own  words: 

"I  had  occasion  to  speak  with  you,  a  few  days  before  the  in 
tended  attack  on  the  26th  of  December,  1776,  and  requested 
you  to  retire  with  toe  to  a  private  room  at  my  quarters — the 
business  related  to  intelligence — a  general  conversation,  however, 
soon  took  place  concerning  the  state  of  public  affairs,  and  after  run 
ning  over  a  number  of  topics ; — in  an  agony  of  mind,  and  despair 
strongly  expressed  in  your  countenance  and  tone  of  voice,  you 
spoke  your  apprehensions  concerning  the  event  of  the  contest ; 
that  our  affairs  looked  very  desperate,  and  we  were  only  making 
a  sacrifice  of  ourselves ; — that  the  time  of  General  Howe's  offer 
ing  pardon  and  protection  to  persons  who  should  come  in  before 
the  first  of  January,  1777,  was  nearly  expired ;  and  that  Galloway, 
the  Aliens,  and  others,  had  gone  over  and  availed  themselves  of 
the  pardon  and  protection  offered  by  said  proclamation; — that 
you  had  a  family  and  ought  to  take  care  of  them,  and  that  you 
did  not  understand  following  the  wretched  remains  (or  remnants) 
of  a  broken  army ;  that  your  brother,  (then  Colonel,  or  Lieuten 
ant  Colonel  of  the  militia — but  you  say  of  five  months'  men, 
(which  is  not  material)  was  then  at  Burlington  with  his  family, 
and  that  you  had  advised  him  to  remain  there  and  if  the  enemy 
took  possession  of  the  town,  to  take  a  protection  and  swear  alle 
giance,  and  in  so  doing  he  would  be  perfectly  justifiable." 

If  General  Cadwalader  be  understood  to  say  that  in 
December,    1776,   before  the  success  at  Trenton,    Mr. 


disinterestedness,  personally  brave,  pensive  («V),  earnest  and  devout." 
Bancroft,  vol.  8,  page  385. 


33 

Reed,  in  confidential  intercourse  with  him,  was  despon 
dent  as  to  the  prospects  of  the  Americans,  it  is  certainly 
not  worth  while  to  dispute  it.  There  was  despondency, 
deep  despondency,  and  the  highest  in  military  rank  felt 
it;  and  to  their  families  and  friends  expressed  it. 
"General  Reed,"  says  "Mr.  Nixon,"  on  my  enquiring 
the  news,  and  what  he  thought  of  affairs  in  general,  said 
that  appearances  were  very  gloomy  and  unfavourable; 
that  he  was  fearful  or  apprehensive  the  business  was 
nearly  settled,  or  the  game  almost  up,  or  words  to  the 
same  effect.*  That  all  this,  or  some  of  it,  may  have 
been  said,  is  quite  probable,  for  we  find  that  on  the  i8th 
of  December,  Washington  wrote  to  his  brother:  "Be 
tween  you  and  me,  I  think  our  affairs  are  in  a  very  bad 
condition.  In  a  word  if  every  nerve  is  not  strained  to 
recruit  the  new  army  with  all  possible  speed,  I  think  the 
game  is  nearly  up."  "Some  effectual  remedy,"  wrote 
Mr.  Morris  to  Congress,  on  December  2jd,  "must  be 
applied  to  this  evil,  (the  depreciation  of  the  currency) 
or  the  game  will  be  up;"  the  very  words  which  General 
Cadwalader  and  his  friend  Mr.  Nixon,  thought  it  trea 
sonable  for  Mr.  Reed  to  utter. 

But  General  Cadwalader,  in  1783,  meant  to  say  more. 
He  meant  to  charge  Mr.  Reed  with  more  than  transient 
despondency,  when,  in  1778,  angered  at  the  prosecution 

*  In  Mr.  Nixon's  certificate  these  disjunctives  are  all  in  italics,  indi 
cating  an  intense  uncertainty-  as  to  what  was  really  said. 

3 


34 

of  his  friend,  Mr.  William  Hamilton,  who,  with  Car 
lisle  and  Roberts,  was  tried  for  high  treason,  he,  for  the 
first  time,  talked  of  treasonable  defection.  "Though 
living  in  the  closest  intimacy/'  says  Mr.  Clymer,  "I 
never  (before)  heard  you  drop  the  most  distant  hint  of 
any  defection  of  Mr.  Reed,  of  which,  I  myself,  had  no 
suspicion."  He/1  meant  to  charge  much  more  than  des 
pondency,  when  a  year  later,  he  furnished  Arnold,  on  his 
trial  for  official  misdemeanour,  of  which  he  was  convided, 
and  at  the  very  time  a  secret  traitor,  with  a  weapon  of 
calumny  to  be  hurled  at  his  prosecutor.  He  meant  to 
charge  cowardly  disaffection,  and  it  is  this  charge  which 
must  be  met.  1 1  cannot  be  evaded.  1 1  ought  not  to  be  un 
derstated;  for,  while  I  do  not  condescend  to  ask  a  stricter 
rule  of  evidence,  in  view  of  the  enormity  of  the  imputed 
crime,  I  have  a  right  to  infer  from  the  subsequent  re 
lations  of  the  accuser  and  the  accused,  that  the  former 
did  not  believe  a  charge  so  gross  had  any  foundation. 
There  is  not  a,  trace  of  General  Cadwalader  having 
breathed  this  accusation  until  the  Treason  trials  of  1778. 
The  only  attempt  to  show  that  he  ever  whispered  it  be 
fore,  is  in  Colonel  Hamilton's  letter  of  the  I4th  of 
March,  1783,  in  which  he  says  that  after  an  effort  of 
memory  "he  thinks"  the  matter  was  mentioned  to  him, 
sometime  in  the  campaign  of  1777,  and,  with  great 
caution,  he  adds:  "It  is  the  part  of  candour  to  observe 
that  I  am  not  able  to  distinguish  with  certainty  whether 


35 

the  recollection  I  have  of  these  words  arises  from  the 
strong  impression  made  by  your' declaration  at  the  time, 
or  from  having  heard  them  more  than  once  repeated 
within  a  year  past." 

The  secret  thus  kept  was  a  perilous  one,  to  both  par 
ties.  cMr.  Reed  avowed  his  intention  to  desert  to  the 
enemy  at  the  most  critical  position  of  affairs,  in  terms 
so  distinct  that  I  was  on  the  point  of  arresting  him,  and, 
this,  I  kept  secret  from  all,  including  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  to  whom  I  was  bound  to  reveal  it.  I  kept  it  se 
cret  from  motives  of  expediency  and  in  the  exercise  of 
discretion  which  I  considered  advantageous/  This, 
almost  in  terms,  is  what  General  Cadwalader  said  two,  or 
three,  or  seven  years  after.  And  this  being  so,  may  we 
not  ask,  why  was  it  ever  told  ?  Why  was  it  put  in  cir 
culation  in  1778,  or  in  1779,  or  in  1782,  gloomy  and 
critical  periods  of  our  story  ?  Why  was  it  kept  back 
till  party  asperities  and  political  bitterness  called  it  forth  ? 
Why  was  it  talked  of  in  coffee  houses  and  clubs,  as 
General  Cadwalader  tries  to  prove  it  was  ?  Why  was  it 
blurted  out  in  anger  on  the  trial  of  a  cause  when  Mr. 
Reed  was  merely  discharging  a  professional  duty  ?  And 
why  was  it,  at  last,  "conveyed"  as  a  weapon  of  offence 
to  a  man  like  Arnold,  and,  brandished  in  the  light  of  day 
by  a  mercenary,  jobbing  traitor?  Does  not  it  look  as  if 
it  might  have  been  an  after  thought,  and  that  if  Gen 
eral  Cadwalader,  in  1783,  believed  what  he  said,  it  was 
through  some  peculiar  mental  process  which  clouds  the 


memory  and  makes  an  angry  man  think  he  remembers 
what  never  occurred.  It  is  not  the  first  time  and  will 
not  be  the  last,  when  men  have  chafed  themselves  into 
delusions. 

Arnold's  language  on  his  trial  in  January,  1780,  was 
this: 

"Conscious  of  my  own  innocence,  and  the  unworthy 
methods  taken  to  injure  me,  I  can  with  boldness  say  to 
my  persecutors  in  general,  and  to  the  chief  of  them  in 
particular,  that  in  the  hour  of  danger,  when  the  affairs  of 
America  wore  a  gloomy  aspect,  when  our  illustrious 
General  was  retreating  through  New  Jersey  with  a  hand 
ful  of  men,  I  did  not  propose  to  my  associates  basely  to 
quit  the  General  and  sacrifice  the  cause  of  my  country 
to  my  personal  safety,  by  going  over  to  the  enemy  and 
making  my  peace." 

Mr.  Reed,  in  his  pamphlet  of  1782,  says:  "When  Ar 
nold's  insinuation  dropped,  a  smile  of  contempt  mani 
fested  itself  throughout  the  room."  And  Mr.  Sparks 
well  remarks:  "The  boastfulness  and  malignity  of 
these  declarations  are  obvious  enough,  but  their  con 
summate  hypocrisy  can  be  understood  only  by  knowing 
the  fad,  that,  at  the  moment  they  were  uttered,  Arnold 
had  been  eight  months  in  secret  correspondence  with 
the  enemy,  and  was  prepared,  if  not  resolved,  when  the 
first  opportunity  should  offer  to  desert  and  betray  his 
country.  No  suspicions  of  such  a  purpose  being  enter 
tained,  these  effusions  were  regarded  as  the  offspring  of 


"37 

vanity,  and  the  natural  acerbity  of  his  temper.  They 
now  afford  a  remarkable  evidence  of  the  duplicity  of  his 
character,  and  of  the  art  with  which  he  concealed  the 
blackest  schemes  of  wickedness  under  the  guise  of  pre 
tended  virtue  and  boast  of  immaculate  innocence."* 

And  now,  simply  hinting  incidentally  these  general 
reasons  for  incredulity,  I  proceed  to  show  that  it  was  an 
after  thought,  and  that,  in  December  1776,  General 
Cadwalader  did  not  think  Mr.  Reed  unfaithful  to  his 
country,  a  traitor  in  heart,  in  his  own  words,  "a  base 
man  who  had  once  raised  his  foot  to  take  a  step"  that 
ought  to  have  consigned  him  to  the  scaffold.  This  is 
plain  language,  for,  as  I  have  said,  I  do  not  desire  to 
understate  anything  on  the  part  of  the  accuser. 

Let  me  recall  the  reader's  attention  to  the  familiar 
story  of  those  hours  of  trial.  There  is  no  precision  in 
General  Cadwalader's  dates.  The  perilous  conversa 
tion,  he  says,  took  place  "a  few  days  before  the  intended 
attack*  on  the  26th  of  December,  1776."  Doctor  Rush, 
the  other  witness,  fixes  the  date  of  his  conversation  "a 
few  days"  before  the  battle  of  Trenton,  though,  as  he 
says,  it  occurred  on  a  ride  to  "Headquarters  near  New- 


*Life  and  Treason  of  Arnold,  page  141.  "If,*  wrote  Washington  to 
Reed  on  the  zoth  of  November,  1780,  'if  Arnold,  by  the  words  in  his 
letter  to  his  wife/  «.I  am  treated  with  the  greatest  politeness  by  General 
Washington  and  the  officers  of  the  Army,  who  bitterly  execrate  Mr. 
Reed  and  the  Council,  for  their  villainous  attempt  to  injure  me,' 
'  meant  to  comprehend  me  in  the  latter  part  of  the  expression,  he  as 
serted  an  absolute  falsehood." 


town,"  it  must  have  been  before  the  i8th,  for,  then, 
"Headquarters  were  near  the  Falls  of  Trenton."  It 
is  to  be  presumed  that  the  pretended  date  was  within 
the  eight  or  ten  days  before  the  26th  of  December,  and 
so  I  shall  consider  it,  in  the  view  I  desire  to  present  of 
Cadwalader' s  relations  to  Reed,  when,  and  after  this 
secret  infamy  was  said  to  be  revealed. 

They  were  at  Bristol,  with  a  small  body  of  militia  and 
a  few  Continental  troops;  the  enemy  in  unknown  force 
in  front,  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Delaware;  a  small 
body  of  Americans  under  Griffin,  at  or  near  Mount 
Holly;  Washington  about  ten  miles  above,  meditating 
an  attack;  and  Philadelphia,  panic-stricken  and  disaffect 
ed  below.  Then  it  was  that  Washington  communica 
ted  to  Reed  and  Cadwalader,  the  details  of  his  proposed 
attack.  "For  Heaven's  sake,"  said  he,  writing  to  Reed, 
"keep  this  to  yourself,  as  the  discovery  may  prove  fatal 
to  us."  Cadwalader  and  Reed  had  concerted  a  plan  to 
cross  and  attack  the  enemy  below.  The  plans  were 
considered  by  them  in  confidence.  Nay  more,  when 
the  lower  one  was  relinquished,  it  was  agreed  that  Mr. 
Reed  should  cross  the  river  and  confer  with  Griffin,  then 
in  actual  contact  with  the  enemy.  This  was  done;  the 
companion  of  the  errand,  as  he  has  been,  of  unmerited 
calumny,  being  Colonel  John  Cox.  This  critical  duty 
was  performed,  and  the  fact  ascertained  that  no  assistance 
could  be  expected  in  that  quarter,  and  that  Griffin  was 
falling  back.  Then  it  was,  that  further  confidence  was 


39 

reposed  in  Mr.  Reed  by  his  fellow-soldier,  Cadwalader. 
No  one  but  they  knew  Washington's  secret.  He  had 
trusted  them,  and  they,  each  other,  and  for  fear  of 
accidental  disclosure,  Mr.  Reed  went  to  Philadelphia  to 
hurry  on  reinforcements.  He  returned,  just  in  time  to 
take  part  in  the  unsuccessful  attempt  to  pass  the  Dela 
ware  at  Dunk's  Ferry  on  the  night  of  the  2fth,  and  was 
one  of  the  few  officers  who  did  cross  and  with  Colonel 
Cowperthwaite  remained  on  the  other  side.*  He  re 
turned  to  Bristol  on  the  morning  of  the  26th,  before 
news  of  Washington's  success  came  and,  when  it  was 
known,  took  part  in  the  movement  above  Bristol  on 
the  27th.  And  here,  I  venture  to  interrupt  this  line  of 
thought  by  an  incidental  illustration  of  the  failures  of  Gen 
eral  Cadwalader's  memory  en  matters  of  fact.  The  troops 
at  Bristol  crossed  the  Delaware  on  the  2yth,  it  being 
supposed  that  Washington  was  still  on  the  left  bank. 
On  landing,  it  was  ascertained  that  he  had  re-crossed, 

*  Mr.  Bancroft  says:  'Sending  back  word  that  it  was  impossible  to 
carry  out  their  share  in  Washington's  plan,  Reed  deserted  the  party  and 
rode  to  safe  quarters  within  the  enemies  lines  at  Burlington,  having  pre 
viously  obtained  leave  for  a  conference  with  Donop.'  Vol.  9,  p.  229. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  compress  in  few  words  more  gross  misrepre 
sentation  than  there  is  here.  The  impossibility  of  crossing  was  patent 
to  every  body  after  the  first  experiment.  Mr.  Reed  did  not  'desert*  in 
any  sense.  His  contemporary  enemies  never  said  he  did.  He  was  ac 
companied  by  another  officer  of  rank  whose  fidelity  never  was  suspefted. 
Burlington  was  not  within  the  enemy's  lines,  and  Mr.  Reed  returned  to 
Bristol  before  any  news  was  received  from  Trenton.  Of  the  Donop 
fiftion,  I  shall  speak  hereafter.  I  incidentally  annotate  this  illustration 
of  Mr.  Bancroft's  persistent  tendency  to  misstatement. 


4o 

and  it  became  a  question  what  should  be  done  by  the 
force  below. 

Writing  of  this,  in  1783,  General  Cadwalader,  in  his 
pamphlet,  says:  that  on  the  receipt  of  news  that  Wash 
ington  had  re-crossed,  "Colonel  Hitchcock  proposed 
returning  to  Bristol,  /  instantly  declared  my  determination 
against  it,  and  recommended  an  attack  on  Mount  Holly, 
as,  from  the  information  we  had  of  the  force  there,  we 
might  easily  carry  it." 

There  now  lies  before  me  a  certified  copy  from  the 
State  Department  of  a  letter  from  General  Cadwalader 
to  Washington,  dated  on  the  very  day  of  the  occurrence, 
'Burlington,  ten  o'clock,  2yth,'  in  which  he  says: 

"As  I  did  not  hear  from  you  this  morning,  and  being  prepared 
to  embark,  I  concluded  you  was  still  on  this  side,  and  therefore 
embarked  and  landed  about  1500  men  about  two  miles  above 
Bristol.  After  a  considerable  number  were  landed,  I  had  infor 
mation  from  the  paymaster  of  Colonel  Hitchcock's  brigade,  that 
you  had  crossed  over  from  Trenton.  This  defeated  the  scheme 
of  joining  your  army.  We  were  never  more  embarrassed  which 
way  to  proceed.  /  thought  it  most  prudent  to  retreat^  but  Colonel 
Reed  was  of  opinion  that  we  might  safely  proceed  to  Burlington, 
and  recommended  it  warmly,  lest  it  should  have  a  bad  effect  on 
the  militia,  who  were  twice  disappointed.  The  landing  in  open 
daylight  must  have  alarmed  the  enemy,  and  we  might  have  been 
cut  off  by  all  their  force  collected  to  this  place.  We  had  intel 
ligence  immediately  afterwards,  that  the  enemy  had  left  the  Black 
Horse  and  Mount  Holly.  Upon  this  we  determined  to  proceed 
to  Burlington.  Colonel  Reed  and  two  other  officers  went  on 
from  one  post  to  another  till  they  came  to  Bordentown,  where 
they  found  the  coast  clear.  Colonel  Reed  and  Colonel  Cox  are 


41 

now  there,  and  we  shall  march  at  four  to-morrow  morning  for 
that  place." 

Again,  there  is  an  illustration  of  mistaken  memory, 
when,  in  reply  to  the  statement  in  Mr.  Reed's  ad 
dress,  that  he  went  to  Burlington  before  day  but  did 
not  leave  Dunk's  Ferry  'till  he  saw  the  last  man  re- 
embarked,'  General  Cadwalader  in  his  pamphlet  of  1783, 
said,  this  could  not  be,  for  'there  is  no  circumstance  better 
ascertained  than  that  many  of  the  men  were  not  brought 
back  till  eight  o'clock  the  next  morning.'  Writing  to 
General  Washington,  on  the  very  day,  (25th)  Cadwala 
der  said:  "We  concluded  to  withdraw  the  troops  that 
had  passed,  but  could  not  effect  it  till  near  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  The  whole  was  then  ordered  to  march  back 
to  Bristol/'  Four  o'clock  on  Christmas  morning  is  cer 
tainly  long  "before  day." 

Thus  closed  this  chapter  of  unreserved  confidence,  for 
it  is  not  necessary  for  vindication  to  pursue  the  narrative, 
and  scrutinizing  it  from  first  to  last,  from  the  day  when 
at  Washington's  request  or  suggestion,  Mr.  Reed  joined 
Cadwalader  at  Bristol,  till  they  pursued  the  flying 
enemy  to  Bordentown,  it  seems  to  me  difficult,  from 
this  unquestioned  record  of  mutual  faith  and  active 
co-operation,  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  the  whole 
phantom,  of  Mr.  Reed's  disaffection,  was  the  coinage 
of  passion,  and  what  General  Greene  called  "party 
rage."  "General  Cadwalader  never  could  have  had 
such  a  thought." 


42 

Before  adducing  further  proof  on  this  point,  for  it  is 
abundant,  I  pause  on  a  matter  of  painful  interest  con- 
netted  with  these  events;  painful  in  this:  that  General 
Reed,  thus  in  his  lifetime  assailed,  went  to  his  grave 
without  recovering  what  would  have  been  conclusive  on 
the  question  he  was  forced  to  discuss.  Time,  however, 
has  in  this  respect  xione  justice.  Instantly  on  the  pub 
lication,  of  the  anonymous  queries  of  September,  1782, 
Mr.  .Reed  wrote  to  Washington,  saying:  "My  memory 
suggests  to  me  a  letter  I  wrote  your  excellency  from 
Bristol  containing  reasons  for  an  attack  on  the  enemy; 
if  that  letter  can  be  obtained,  I  am  persuaded  it  contains 
sentiments  of  a  very  different  nature  from  those  of  which 
I  complain,  and  would  be  particularly  useful. "  Wash 
ington  replied  that  "being  in  the  field  perfectly  light," 
he  had  no  papers  with  him,  public  or  private,  and  could 
not  therefore  furnish  the  letter,  expressing,  at  the  same 
time,  his  disbelief  of  the  charge  understood  to  be 
made.  Nor  was  it  ever  recovered  during  Mr.  Reed's 
lifetime;  nor  indeed,  for  fifty  years  after  his  death,  when 
Mr.  Sparks  found  it  in  the  Department  of  State,  and 
printed  it  in  the  appendix  to  the  fourth  volume  of  the 
Works  of  Washington.  There,  for  the  first  time  I  saw  it. 

REED  TO  WASHINGTON. 

Bristol,  December  22,  1776. 
DEAR  SIR: 

Pomroy,  whom  I  sent  by  your  order  to  go  to  Amboy,  and  so 
through  the  Jerseys  and  round  by  Princeton  to  you,  returned  to 


43 

Burlington  yesterday.  He  went  to  South  Amloy,  but  was  not 
able  to  get  over ;  upon  which  he  came  to  Brunswick — passed  on 
to  Princeton,  and  was  prevented  from  going  to  Pennington,  upon 
which  he  returned  to  Burlington  by  way  of  Cranbury.  His  in 
telligence  is,  that  he  saw  no  troops,  baggage  wagons,  or  artillery, 
going  to  New  York,  except  about  eight  wagons,  which  he  under 
stood  had  the  baggage  of  some  of  the  light  horse,  who  had  been 
relieved  and  were  going  into  quarters.  At  Cranbury  he  saw  six 
teen  wagons  going  down  to  South  Amboy,  for  the  baggage  of 
about  five  hundred  men,  who  were  to  quarter  about  Cranbury, 
being  enlisted  forces  commanded  by  one  Lawrence.  At  Bruns 
wick,  he  saw  four  pieces  of  cannon ;  the  number  of  men  he 
could  not  learn,  but  they  did  not  exceed  six  or  eight  hundred. 
Princeton,  he  says,  was  called  head-quarters,  and  there  he  saw  a 
very  considerable  body  of  troops  coming  out  of  the  college, 
meeting  house  and  other  places  where  they  quartered.  He  un 
derstood  they  were  settled  in  their  winter  quarters,  and  had  given 
over  further  operations  till  the  spring.  In  Burlington  County,  he 
found  them  scattered  through  all  the  farmers'  houses,  eight,  ten, 
twelve  and  fifteen  in  a  house,  and  rambling  over  the  whole 
country. 

Colonel  Griffin  has  advanced  up  the  Jersey's  with  six  hun 
dred  men  as  far  as  Mount  Holly,  within  seven  Yniles  of  their  head 
quarters  at  the  Black  Horse.  He  has  written  over  here  for  two 
pieces  of  artillery  and  two  or  three  hundred  volunteers,  as  he 
expected  an  attack  very  soon.  The  spirits  of  the  militia  here 
are  very  high  ;  they  are  all  for  supporting  him.  Colonel  Cadwala- 
der  and  the  gentlemen  here  all  agree,  that  they  should  be  indulged. 
We  can  either  give  him  a  strong  reinforcement,  or  make  a 
separate  attack ;  the  latter  bids  fairest  for  producing  the  greatest 
and  best  effects.  It  is  therefore  determined  to  make  all  possible 
preparation  to-day ;  and  no  event  happening  to  change  our  meas 
ures,  the  main  body  here  will  cross  the  river  to-morrow  morn 
ing,  and  attack  their  post  between  this  and  the  Black  Horse,  pro 
ceeding  from  thence,  either  to  the  Black  Horse  or  the  square, 
where  about  two  hundred  men  are  posted,  as  things  shall  turn 


44 

out  with  Griffin.  If  they  should  not  attack  Griffin  as  he  expects, 
it  is  probable  both  our  parties  may  advance  to  the  Black  Horse, 
should  success  attend  the  intermediate  attempt.  If  they  should 
collect  their  force  and  march  against  Griffin,  our  attack  will  have 
the  best  effects  in  preventing  their  sending  troops  on  that  errand, 
or  breaking  up  their  quarters  and  coming  in  upon  their  rear,  which 
we  must  endeavour  to  do  in  order  to  free  Griffin.  We  are  all  of 
opinion,  my  dear  General,  that  something  must  be  attempted,  to 
revive  our  expiring > credit,  give  our  cause  some  degree  of  repu 
tation,  and  prevent  a  total  depreciation  of  the  continental  money, 
which  is  coming  on  very  fast ;  that  even  a  failure  cannot  be  more 
fatal  than  to  remain  in  our  present  situation ;  in  short,  some  en 
terprise  must  be  undertaken  in  our  present  circumstances,  or  we 
must  give  up  the  cause.  In  a  little  time  the  Continental  army 
will  be  dissolved.  The  militia  must  be  taken  before  their  spirits 
and  patience  are  exhausted ;  and  the  scattered,  divided  state  of 
the  enemy  affords  us  a  fair  opportunity  of  trying  what  our  men 
will  do,  when  called  to  an  offensive  attack.  Will  it  not  be  pos 
sible,  my  dear  General,  for  your  troops,  or  such  part  of  them  as 
can  act  with  advantage,  to  make  a  diversion,  or  something  more, 
at  or  about  Trenton?  The  greater  the  alarm,  the  more  likely 
that  success  will  attend  the  attacks.  If  we  could  possess  ourselves 
again  of  New  Jersey,  or  any  considerable  part  of  it,  the  effects 
would  be  greater  than  if  we  had  never  left  it. 

Allow  me  to  hope  that  you  will  consult  your  own  good  judg 
ment  and  spirit,  and  not  let  the  goodness  of  your  heart  subjecT: 
you  to  the  influence  of  opinions  from  men  in  every  respecl:  your 
inferiors.  Something  must  be  done  before  the  sixty  days  expire 
which  the  Commissioners  have  allowed ;  for  however  many  affect 
to  despise  it,  it  is  evident  that  a  very  serious  attention  is  paid  to 
it,  and  I  am  confident  that  unless  some  more  favourable  appear 
ance  attends  our  arms  and  cause  before  that  time,  a  very  great 
number  of  the  militia  officers  here  will  follow  the  example  of 
those  of  Jersey,  and  take  benefit  from  it.  I  will  not  disguise  my 
own  sentiments,  that  our  cause  is  desperate  and  hopeless,  if  we 
do  not  take  the  opportunity  of  the  colle&ion  of  troops  at  present, 


to  strike  some  stroke.  Our  affairs  are  hastening  fast  to  ruin,  if 
we  do  not  retrieve  them  by  some  happy  event.  Delay  with  us  is 
now  equal  to  a  total  defeat.  Be  not  deceived,  my  dear  General, 
with  small,  flattering  appearances ;  we  must  not  suffer  ourselves 
to  be  lulled  into  security  and  inaction,  because  the  enemy  does 
not  cross  the  river.  It  is  but  a  reprieve,  the  execution  is  more 
certain,  for  I  am  very  clear,  that  they  can  and  will  cross  the 
river,  in  spite  of  any  opposition  we  can  give  them. 

Pardon  the  freedom  I  have  used.  The  love  of  my  country,  a 
wife  and  four  children  in  the  enemy's  hands,  the  respect  and  at 
tachment  I  have  to  you,  the  ruin  and  poverty  that  must  attend 
me,  and  thousands  of  others  will  plead  my  excuse  for  so  much 
freedom.  I  am,  with  the  greatest  respect  and  regard,  dear  sir, 
Your  obedient  and  affectionate  humble  servant. 

JOSEPH  REED.* 

*  Here  again  I  stoop  to  pick  up  another  of  Mr.  Bancroft's  poisonous 
shafts.  He  says :  "  The  elaborate  letter  of  Reed  to  Washington,  De 
cember  22,  1776,  proves,  at  most,  that  Reed  was  not  in  the  secret.  As 
Adjutant  General,  his  place  was  at  Washington's  side,  if  he  was  eager 
for  aftion."  Mr.  Bancroft  knows  perfectly  well  that  Reed  was  on  de 
tached  duty  at  Bristol  by  Washington's  orders.  But  he  does  not  con 
tent  himself  with  this  mild  slander.  He  goes  on  to  say :  "  Lord  Bacon 
says:  'Letters  are  good  when  it  may  serve  afterwards  for  a  man's  justi 
fication  to  produce  his  own  letter.'  In  1782,  Reed  wished  to  produce 
this  letter  for  his  own  justification,  &c."  If  such  was  Mr.  Reed's  de 
sign  in  writing  this  letter,  he  would  have  kept  a  copy  to  produce  on  a 
fit  occasion  and  this  we  know  he  certainly  did  not.  As  I  have  said  in 
the  text,  he  never  saw  this  letter  during  his  life.  A  part  of  it  was  print 
ed  by  Gordon  in  1788,  three  years  after  Mr.  Reed's  death.  I  have 
no  words  with  which  to  characterize  Mr.  Bancroft's  treatment  of  these 
subjefts.  He  seems  to  revel  in  defamation  of  certain  individuals,  and 
if  the  reader  will  turn  to  another  of  Lord  Bacon's  Essays,  that 
on  'Truth,'  (Wbately's  edition,  page  2)  he  may  see  what  mixture  it  is 
that  gives  zest  to  this  enjoyment.  I  never  claimed  for  Mr.  Reed  any 
very  large  share  of  merit  in  what  he  then  did  and  said  and  wrote,  but, 
even  that,  Mr.  Bancroft  begrudges. 


46 

This  letter  and  others  to  be  quoted  by  and  by,  tell 
the  whole  story.  They  are  the  letters  of  an  anxious  and 
resolute  man;  of  one  who  sees  the  future  clearly  and 
states  his  views  precisely.  They  ave  the  letters  of  a 
suggestive,  enterprising  man,  capable  of  exertions;  whom 
the  gloom  of  the  probable  future  did  not  incapacitate. 
The  letter  of  the  22d,  was  written  within  the  "few  days" 
of  suspense  before  the  affair  at  Trenton.  Yet  this  letter, 
no  one  of  the  busy  men  who,  from  time  to  time,  have 
been  disinterring  these  buried  controversies  has  had  the 
honesty  to  re-print. 

Thus  was  Mr.  Reed  regarded  and  confided  in  during 
the  campaign  of  1776  by  General  Cadwalader  himself, 
and  though,  by  the  certificate  of  Hamilton,  an  attempt 
is  made  to  show  that  in  1777  he  declared  his  distrust, 
and  spoke  of  the  imputed  infidelity  of  the  year  before; 
yet  the  fact  is  incontestable  that,  throughout  that  year,  in 
all  the  operations  in  the  neigbourhood  of  Philadelphia, 
Cadwalader  and  Reed  were  acting  together  on  terms  of 
the  most  affectionate  confidence.  It  was  their  common 
honour  to  be  recommended  in  the  same  letter  by  Wash 
ington,  for  military  promotion.  "I  shall  take  the  lib 
erty,"  he  wrote  to  Congress,  cc of  recommending  Colonel 
Cadwalader  as  one  of  the  first  of  the  new  appointments. 
I  have  found  him  a  man  of  ability,  a  good  disciplinarian, 
firm  in  his  principles  and  of  intrepid  bravery.  I  also 
beg  leave  to  recommend  Colonel  Reed  to  the  command 
of  the  horse,  as  a  person  in  my  opinion  in  every  way 


47 

qualified;  for  he  is  extremely  adtive  and  enterprising, 
many  signal  proofs  of  which  he  has  given  this  campaign."* 
They  served  together  from  Germantown  to  Monmouth. 
If  General  Cadwalader  in  1777,  did  intimate  to 
Hamilton  this  more  than  suspicion  of  his  companion 
in  arms,  it  must  have  been,  we  are  bound  to  sup 
pose,  in  no  spirit  of  wanton  and  gratuitous  disparage 
ment,  but  from  some  sense  of  public  duty,  Hamilton 
being  in  close  connection  with  the  Commander-in- 
Chief.  What  then,  on  this  theory,  can  be  thought  of 
the  following  letters  to  Mr.  Reed  the  two  from 
Washington  being  re-produced  to  show  that  then,  as 
ever,  he  reposed  in  Mr.  Reed  the  most  implicit  confi 
dence  ?  It  was  more  than  an  appearance  of  trust.  It 
was  affectionate  and  abiding  faith.  One  of  them  I  now 
publish  for  the  first  time,  for  it  was  recovered  after  the 
appearance  of  my  Memoir  in  1847. 

WASHINGTON  TO  REED. 

Middlebrook,  'June  23,  1777. 
DEAR  SIR: 

Your  favours  of  the  I2th  and  i8th  inst.  are  both  before  me, 
and  on  two  accounts  have  given  me  (illegible);  first,  because 
I  much  wished  to  see  you  at  the  head  of  the  Cavalry;  and 
secondly,  by  refusing  of  it,  my  arrangements  have  been  a  good 
deal  disconcerted.  As  your  reasons  (or  refusing  the  appointment, 
are  no  doubt  satisfactory  to  yourself,  and  your  determination 
fixed,  it  is  unnecessary  to  enter  upon  a  discussion  of  the  point. 
I  can  only  add,  I  wish  it  had  been  otherwise,  especially  as  I  flat- 
tej  myself  that  my  last  would  convince  you  that  you  still  held 

*  Sparks  Washington  IV.  292. 


48 

the  same  place  in  my  affection  that  you  ever  did.  If  inclination 
or  a  desire  of  rendering  those  aids  to  the  service  which  your 
abilities  enable  you  to  do  should  lead  you  to  the  camp,  it  is  un 
necessary  for  me  I  hope  to  add  that  I  should  be  extremely  hap 
py  in  seeing  you  one  of  my  Family  whilst  you  remain  in  it. 

The  late  coalition  of  parties  in  Pennsylvania  is  a  most  fortu 
nate  circumstance  j  that,  and  the  spirited  manner  in  which  the 
militia  of  this  State  turned  out  upon  the  late  manoeuvre  of  the 
enemy,  have  in  my  opinion  given  a  greater  shock  to  the  enemy 
than  any  event  which  has  happened  in  the  course  of  this  dispute 
because  it  was  altogether  unexpected  and  gave  the  decisive  stroke 
to  their  enterprise  on  Philadelphia.  The  hint  you  have  given 
respecting  the  compliment  due  the  Executive  powers  of  Penn 
sylvania  I  thank  you  for,  but  can  assure  you  I  gave  General 
Mifflin  no  direction  respecting  the  militia,  that  I  did  not  conceive, 
nay  that  I  had  not  been  told  by  Congress  he  was  vested  with  be 
fore  ;  for  you  must  know  that  General  Mifflin,  at  the  particular 
instance  and  by  a  resolve  of  Congress  had  been  detained  from 
his  duty  in  this  camp  near  a  month  to  be  in  readiness  to  have 
out  the  militia,  if  occasion  should  require  it,  and  only  got  here 
the  day  before  I  received  such  intelligence  as  convinced  me  that 
the  enemy  were  upon  the  point  of  moving;  in  consequence  of 
which,  I  requested  him  to  return  and  without  defining  his  duty 
desired  he  would  use  his  utmost  endeavours  to  carry  the  designed 
operation  into  effect,  conceiving  that  a  previous  plan  had  been 
laid  down  by  Congress  on  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  so  far  as 
respected  the  mode  of  drawing  the  militia  out.  The  action  of 
them  afterwards,  circumstances  alone  could  direct.  I  did  not 
pretend  to  give  any  order  about  it. 

It  gives  me  pleasure  to  learn  from  your  letter  that  the  reasons 
assigned  by  me  to  General  Arnold  for  not  attacking  the  enemy 
in  their  situation  between  the  Raritan  and  Millstone  met  with 
the  approbation  of  those  who  were  acquainted  with  them.  We 
have  some  among  us, and  I  dare  say  Generals,  who  wish  to  make 
themselves  popular  at  the  expense  of  others  or  who  think  the 
cause  is  not  to  be  advanced  otherwise  than  by  fighting ;  the  pe- 


49 

culiar  circumstances  under  which  it  is  to  be  done  and  the  con 
sequences  which  may  follow  are  objects  too  trivial  for  their  at 
tention  ;  but  as  I  have  one  great  end  in  view,  I  shall,  maugre  all 
the  (illegible)  of  this  kind,  steadily  pursue  means  which  in  my 
judgment  lead  to  the  accomplishment  of  it,  not  doubting  but  that 
the  candid  part  of  mankind,  if  they  are  convinced  of  my  integ 
rity,  will  make  proper  allowance  for  my  inexperience  and  frailties. 
I  will  agree  to  be  loaded  with  all  the  obloquy  they  can  bestow 
if  I  commit  a  wilful  error. 

If  General  Howe  has  not  manoeuvered  much  deeper  than 
most  people  seem  disposed  to  think  him  capable  of,  his  army  is 
absolutely  gone,  if  panic-struck,  but  as  I  cannot  persuade  my 
self  with  a  belief  of  the  latter,  notwithstanding  it  is  the  prevailing 
opinion  of  my  officers,  I  cannot  say  that  the  move  I  am  about  to 
make  towards  Amboy  accords  altogether  with  my  opinion,  not 
that  I  am  under  any  other  apprehension  than  that  of  being 
obliged  to  lose  ground  again,  which  would  indeed  be  no  small 
misfortune,  as  the  spirits  of  our  troops  and  the  country  are  greatly 
revived  (and  I  presume)  the  enemy's  not  a  little  depressed  by 
their  late  retrograde  motions. 

By  some  late  accounts,  I  fancy  the  British  Grenadiers  got  a 
pretty  severe  peppering  yesterday,  by  Morgan's  rifle  corps ;  they 
fought,  it  seems,  a  considerable  time  within  the  distance  of  from 
twenty  to  forty  yards  and  from  concurring  accounts  of  several 
of  the  officers  more  than  one  hundred  of  them  must  have 
fallen.*  Had  there  not  been  some  mistake  in  point  of  time  for 

*Mr.  Bancroft  has  no  sympathy  with  Virginia,  and  sometimes  shows 
it  in  an  odd  way.  Speaking  of  Morgan,  a  most  gallant  soldier,  but  of 
whose  freaks  at  Elizabethtown  Point,  Mr.  Bancroft  gives  a  most  re 
markable  account,  he  says :  "  Next  to  Washington,  Morgan  was  the 
best  officer  whom  Virginia  sent  into  the  field,  though  she  raises  no 
statue  to  the  incomparable  leader  of  her  light  troops."  (page  131.)  To 
what  soldier  of  the  Revolution  has  Massachusetts,  or  New  York,  or 
Pennsylvania  raised  a  statue  ?  There  are  hideous  Penns  and  awkward 
Franklins,  and  Hancocks,  and  Otis,  and  Websters,  and  Storys,  and 
Evererfs,  and  Horace  Manns,  but  there  is  no  Monumental  stone  for 

4 


5o 

marching  the  several  brigades  that  were  ordered  upon  that  ser 
vice,  and  particularly  in  delivering  an  order  to  General  Varnum, 
I  believe  the  rear  of  General  Howe's  troops  might  have  been  a 
little  rougher  handled  than  they  were,  or  if  an  Express  who 
went  to  General  Maxwell  the  evening  before,  had  reached  him  in 
time  to  co-operate  upon  the  enemy's  flank,  for  which  purpose  he 
was  sent  down  the  day  before' with  a  respectable  force,  very  good 
consequences  might  have  resulted  from  it ;  however  it  is  too  late 
to  remedy  those  mistakes  now,  and  my  paper  tells  me  I  can  add 
no  more  than  to  assure  you,  that  I  am  Dear  Sir, 

Y'r  affeft'e. 

Go.  WASHINGTON. 

CAD'WALADER  TO  REED. 

Head  Barters,  ^Otb  November,  IJJJ. 
DEAR  SIR: 

We  were  consulting  about  winter  quarters  when  your  letter 
came  to  hand,  and  I  detained  your  servant  in  hopes  of  giving  you 
their  determination,  but  the  General  has  required  the  opinion  of 
the  officers  in  writing,  at  10  o'clock  to-morrow  morning.  I  showed 
your  letter  to  the  General.  Many  of  the  officers  are  for  going 
into  winter  quarters,  on  the  line  from  Lancaster  towards  Easton. 
If  this  is  attempted,  I  am  sure  the  troops  will  march  there  only 
to  be  disappointed.  By  the  best  information,  those  towns  are 
crowded  with  inhabitants  from  the  city  and  little  shelter  can  be 
found  there. 

The  General  officers  will  set  the  example  of  going  home,  the 
field  officers  will  follow  their  example:  captains  and  subalterns 
will  expect  the  same  indulgence  and  the  soldiers  will  apply  for 
furloughs ;  and  if  refused  will  desert.  By  these  means  the  army 

the  ancient  soldiers  of  the  North.  It  may  too  admit  of  a  question, 
and,  that  without  disparagement,  whether  Morgan  was  a  better  officer 
than  Henry  Lee,  who  was  a  Virginian.  Morgan  was  born  in 
New  Jersey. 


5' 

will  be  dispersed  through  the  different  colonies  and  it  will  be  im 
possible  to  collect  them  in  time  to  open  an  early  campaign.  The 
country  on  every  side  will  be  left  to  be  plundered  and  vast  num 
bers  will  apply  for  protection.  The  inhabitants  will  be  dispirited, 
the  credit  of  our  money  ruined,  the  recruiting  service  at  an  end 
and  inevitable  ruin  must  follow.  It  has  been  proposed  to  take 
post  at  Wilmington  and  the  little  towns  in  that  neighbourhood 
and  build  huts  for  those  who  cannot  be  provided  with  quarters.  If 
we  do  not  do  this,  the  enemy  may  take  possession  of  this  post 
with  two  thousand  men  or  three,  which  they  can  easily  spare 
and  by  this  means  secure  the  lower  counties  on  the  eastern 
shore.  By  taking  possession  of  this  strong  post,  and  bringing 
down  the  gondolas,  we  may  annoy  the  navigation,  and  by  being 
on  the  spot  in  spring,  take  such  measures  as  may  oblige  the 
enemy  to  come  out  and  attack  us  in  the  field.  We  have  good 
information  that  Cornwallis  is  returned  and  that  the  enemy  had 
orders  to  march  at  two  o'clock  yesterday  morning.  The  orders 
were  not  given  out  'till  dusk — the  officers  were  driving  about  in 
great  confusion  and  were  heard  to  complain  that  the  orders 
came  out  so  late.  The  weather  prevented,  or  we  should  certain 
ly  have  had  a  brush  yesterday.  Greene  and  the  detachment 
from  New  Jersey  are  all  arrived  in  camp.  We  are  now  in  full 
force  and  in  perfect  readiness  for  them,  and  wish  nothing  more 
earnestly  than  to  see  them  out.  This  weather  will  probably 
delay  the  matter  for  a  few  days,  but  I  have  no  doubt  they  intend 
us  a  Visit  or  else  this  is  given  out  to  cover  a  design  of  making 
a  large  foraging  party  to  New  Jersey,  as  a  great  number  of  boats 
have  been  collected.  The  last  seems  very  probable.  The  Mar 
quis,  you  know,  was  in  Jersey ;  he  commanded  the  detachment 
of  riflemen  about  150,  and  130  militia,  with  which  he  attacked 
a  Hessian  picket,  350  men,  and  drove  them  above  a  mile,  and  at 
dusk  remained  master  of  the  field,  finding  a  number  of  dead  and 
taking  fourteen  prisoners.  'Tis  said  they  lost  twenty  killed;  we 
lost  but  three  or  four  men.  The  Marquis  behaved  with  great 
bravery  and  extols  the  riflemen  and  militia  to  the  skies.  The 
enemy  crossed  at  Gloucester,  covered  by  their  shipping,  and  took 


with  them  about  four  hundred  head  of  cattle,  chiefly  milch  cows 
and  young  cattle.  Greene  intended  to  attack  Cornwallis  and  had 
made  his  disposition,  but  prudently  declined  it.  The  attempt  in 
my  opinion  was  dangerous,  as  2  or  3000  men  could  have  been 
thrown  in  his  rear,  or  a  reinforcement  sent  over  to  Gloucester  in 
the  night,  without  his  notice.  Nothing  more  worth  notice. 

Cannot   you    come   here   to-morrow  and  advise  ?     You  can 
think  of  the  matter  to  night.     My  compliments  to  the  ladies. 

Your  most  obedient  and 

Very  humble  servant, 

To  GENERAL  REED.  JOHN  CADWALADER. 

WASHINGTON  TO  REED. 

W^hitemarsh,  December  2,  1777. 
DEAR  SIR, 

If  you  can  with  any  convenience,  let  me  see  you  to  day,  I 
shall  be  thankful  for  it.  I  am  about  fixing  the  winter  cantonments 
of  the  army,  and  find  so  many  and  such  capital  objections  to 
each  mode  proposed,  that  I  am  exceedingly  embarrassed,  not 
only  by  advice  given  me,  but  in  my  own  judgment  and  should 
be  very  glad  of  your  sentiments  on  the  matter  without  loss  of 
time.  In  hopes  of  seeing  you  I  shall  only  add,  that  from  Read 
ing  to  Lancaster,  inclusively,  is  the  general  sentiment,  whilst  Wil 
mington  and  its  vicinity,  have  powerful  advocates.  This,  how 
ever,  is  mentioned  under  the  rose ;  for  I  am  convinced  in  my  own 
opinion,  that  if  the  enemy  believed  we  had  this  place  in  contem 
plation  they  would  possess  themselves  of  it  immediately.  I  an> 
very  sincerly,  dear  sir 

Yours  affectionately, 

GENERAL  REED.  G.  WASHINGTON. 

CADWALADER  TO  REED. 

Head  Barters,  December  IO,  1777. 
DEAR  SIR: 

If  I  have  in  the  least  degree  contributed  to  promote  the  general 
cause,  I  shall  think  my  time  well  spent ;  as  soon  as  the  army  is 


53 

fixed  for  the  winter,  I  shall  return  to  my  family  in  Maryland; 
but  tliink  it  my  duty  to  render  every  service  in  my  power  at  the 
opening  of  the  next  campaign.  I  am  sorry  I  cannot  think  as 
you  do  with  respect  to  the  accepting  an  appointment  in  this 
State;  I  look  upon  the  present  powers  established  as  a  most 
daring,  dangerous  usurpation ;  and  can  never  consent  to  support 
or  even  countenance  it.  I  opposed  it  as  long  as  those  engaged 
appeared  in  earnest,  and  as  long  as  measures  which  must  cer 
tainly  have  succeeded,  were  supported.  The  same  reasons  which 
induced  the  gentlemen  who  have  given  up  the  cause  to  defer 
the  opposition  till  the  present  troubles  were  over,  will  have  as 
much  weight  when  the  States  are  tired  out  with  a  long  and  ex 
pensive  war  as  I  conceive  this  government  can  never  be  changed 
without  another  revolution. 

Your  country  is  much  indebted  for  your  services  and  nothing 
is  more  reasonable  than  to  repair  your  loss.  I  shall  most 
chearfully  take  the  first  opportunity  of  mentioning  it  to  the 
General  and  if  it  cannot  be  done  in  this  line,  will  write  to  some 
of  the  members  of  Congress.  The  army  marches  to  morrow 
very  early. 

For  God's  sake  endeavour  to  suppress  this  dangerous  faction 
before  it  gets  too  great  a  length !     If  it  succeeds,  America  is  lost. 
I  am,  Dear  Sir,  with  great  respeft  and  esteem, 

your  most  obedient  and  humble  servant, 

GENERAL  REED.  JOHN  CADWALADER. 


Conclusive  as  are  these  letters  that  General  Cadwal- 
ader  could  not  have  believed  in  1776  or  1777  what  he 
alleged  so  positively  in  1778  and  1783,  it  would  be  un 
just  to  Mr.  Reed  to  rest  his  vindication  on  them  alone. 

The  accusation  of  1783  was  a  sweeping  one,  and  in 
volved  others  besides  Mr.  Reed.  Two  gentlemen  were 
especially  assailed — Mr.  Bowes  Reed,  (the  General's  bro- 


54 

ther)  and  Colonel  John  Cox,  of  New  Jersey — the  former 
directly,  the  latter  indirectly. 

"He  (General  Reed)  said:" — this  is  the  'Brutus' 
charge — "that  his  brother,  then  Colonel  or  Lieutenant 
Colonel  of  the  militia  was  at  Burlington  with  his  family; 
that  he  had  advised  him  to  remain  there;  and  if  the 
enemy  took  possession  of  the  town,  to  take  a  protection 
and  swear  allegiance  and  in  so  doing  he  would  be  per 
fectly  justified." 

Mr.  Bowes  Reed  who  many  years  survived  his  bro 
ther  promptly  met  the  charge,  as  it  was  first  presented 
by  ( Brutus/  and  to  this  contradiction  it  should  be  re 
membered  Cadwalader's  pamphlet  makes  no  reply. 

"  Bowes  Reed,  Esquire,  Secretary  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey, 
and  heretofore  a  lieutenant  colonel  in  the  new  levies  of  said  State, 
being  duly  sworn,  deposeth  and  saith :  that,  in  the  month  of  De 
cember,  1776,  this  deponent's  time  being  expired  in  the  five 
months'  service,  he  returned,  in  bad  health,  to  Burlington,  in 
New  Jersey,  the  place  of  his  former  residence,  which,  though 
not  occupied  by  the  troops  of  either  party,  was  subject  to  the  in 
cursions  of  both ;  that  during  that  time  this  deponent's  brother, 
then  Adjutant  General  of  the  Continental  army,  frequently  came 
over  from  Bristol,  where  the  Pennsylvania  militia  then  lay,  in 
order  to  procure  intelligence  of  the  movements  and  designs  of  the 
enemy,  then  lying  at  Bordentown,  the  Black  Horse,  and  Mount 
Holly ;  that  this  deponent  assisted  his  brother  in  said  service  by 
procuring  and  equipping  spies  to  go  within  the  enemy's  lines,  and 
communicating  the  advice  occasionally  received ;  and  this  deponent 
farther  saith :  that  during  the  said  time  or  at  any  other  his  bro 
ther  never  intimated  to  this  deponent  in  the  most  distant  man 
ner  any  advice  or  encouragement  to  seek  protection  of  the  ene- 


55 

my ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  that  he  was  too  much  exposed  to  the 
incursions  of  the  enemy  and  wished  him  to  remove  to  a  place 
of  greater  safety ;  and  this  deponent  further  saith :  that  during  the 
said  time,  his  said  brother  never  expressed  to  him  any  apprehen 
sions  of  the  success  of  the  cause,  but  seemed  wholly  engaged 
in  procuring  intelligence,  and  pursuing  other  methods  to  annoy 
and  defeat  the  designs  of  the  enemy ;  this  deponent  farther  says : 
that  his  said  brother,  to  his  knowledge  or  belief,  was  not  engaged 
in  any  other  measure,  than  as  above  mentioned,  except,  that  at 
the  request  of  a  number  of  the  people  of  Burlington,  who  were 
greatly  distressed  by  parties  from  each  army,  he  publicly  sent  a 
message  to  Count  Donop,  who  then  commanded  the  troops  on  the 
part  oi  the  enemy,  proposing,  mutually,  to  keep  the  said  parties 
out  of  the  town,  on  which  Count  Donop  sent  a  messenger  with 
an  answer,  as  this  deponent  was  then  informed,  who  returned 
without  delivering  it,  as  his  said  brother  was  then  gone  into 
Pennsylvania ;  that  in  a  few  days  afterwards  the  surprise  of  the 
Hessians,  at  Trenton,  took  place,  and  the  war  was  entirely  re 
moved  from  this  part  of  the  country ;  and  farther,  the  deponent 
saith  not. 

Sworn  before  me,  the  23rd  day  BOWES  REED. 

of  Oaober,  1782. 

SAM.  How. 

The  other  individual  indirectly  attacked  by  General 
Cadwalader  and  his  friends  was  Colonel  John  Cox  of 
New  Jersey.  To  his  numerous  descendants  I  leave  the 
duty  of  doing  justice  to  his  memory,  should  it,  in  the 
waste  of  reputation  which  now  prevails,  be  further  as 
sailed,  merely  saying  that  he  was  a  man  of  high  per 
sonal  character,  a  sterling  patriot  from  first  to  last,  a  gal 
lant  soldier  and  a  most  accomplished  gentleman.  Pie 
was  one  of  the  two  who  were  associated  with  Greene 


56 

when  in  1778  he  accepted  the  post  of  Quartermaster 
General.  In  facl,  General  Greene  made  this  association 
the  condition  of  undertaking  so  arduous  and  thankless 
a  duty.  With  Mr.  Reed,  Colonel  Cox  was  closely  con 
nected.  The  correspondence  in  my  possession  amply 
attests  this.  In  the 'operations  on  the  Delaware  in  De 
cember  1776,  they  acted  together.  Jerseymen  by  birth 
and  education,  and  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  neigh 
bourhood  where  the  military  operations  were,  they  were 
associated  in  various  perilous  enterprises.  Colonel  Cox 
accompanied  Mr.  Reed  on  his  visit  to  Griffin  at  Mount 
Holly  on  the  night  of  the  24th  of  December,  and  their 
families  were  fugitives  together  on  the  edge  of  the  pine 
forests.  Mr.  Cox  shares  some  of  the  calumnies 
which  had  their  origin  in  these  scenes  of  trial  and 
peril;  for  in  the  last  libellous  re-issue — the  Philadelphia 
one  of  1863 — he  is  spoken  of  as  "Reed's  far ticeps  crim- 
inis"  During  his  life,  however,  no  one  ventured  openly 
to  attack  him. 

The  instant  Mr.  Reed  was  assailed  in  Oswald's  paper, 
Colonel  Cox  came  to  the  rescue  of  his  friend,  and,  as 
early  as  October  2oth,  1782,  made  the  following  state 
ment,  which  shows  the  confidential  relations  of  the 
parties. 

CERTIFICATE  FROM  THE  HON.  JOHN  Cox,  ESQUIRE,  VICE 
PRESIDENT  OF  NEW  JERSEY. 

These  are  to  certify,  that,  in  the  month  of  December,  1776, 
the  subscriber,  being  then  lieutenant  colonel  of  the  second  bat- 


57 

talion  of  Philadelphia  militia,  lying  at  Bristol,  Mr.  Joseph  Reed, 
the  then  adjutant  general  of  the  Continental  army,  came  down 
to  the  militia  by  the  direction  of  the  commander  in  chief  (as  the 
subscriber  understood)  that  he  quartered  in  the  same  house  with 
the  subscriber  and  was  engaged  in  procuring  intelligence  from 
the  enemy,  and  in  the  most  confidential  communications  of  the 
operations  of  the  army ;  that  the  subscriber  accompanied  him  in 
one  to  Mount  Holly  to  Colonel  Griffin  and,  as  the  subscriber 
understood,  was  treated  with  the  most  unreserved  confidence 
both  at  Bristol  and  elsewhere  with  respect  to  the  movements 
and  designs  of  the  troops ;  that  his  advice  and  opinion  appeared 
to  be  much  depended  on,  particularly  with  respecl:  to  crossing 
over  and  remaining  in  New  Jersey,  which  led  to  the  successes  at 
Princeton  and  the  favorable  issue  of  the  campaign ;  that  the  sub 
scriber  verily  believes  those  communications  to  have  been  made 
at  such  times  and  under  such  circumstances  as  must  have  sub 
jected  the  troops  to  certain  destruction  and  the  commanding 
officer  to  the  highest  censure,  if,  on  the  one  hand,  the  person  en 
trusted  had  proved  unfaithful,  or  on  the  other,  the  commanding 
officer  had  reason  to  suspect  him.  The  subscriber  also  well  re 
members  that  the  enemy  were  not  far  distant  from  where  we  land 
ed  ;  that  it  was  proposed  by  several  officers  to  return  to  Pennsylva 
nia;  that  Mr.  Reed  was  of  opinion  that  re-crossing  the  river  would 
greatly  dispirit  the  troops  and  therefore  was  against  it,  and  offered 
to  explore  the  country  where  the  enemy  was  supposed  to  be ;  which, 
by  the  request  of  General  Cadwalader,  he  accordingly  did  with 
out  any  covering  party  or  company,  save  Colonel  Cowperthwaite, 
the  subscriber,  and  a  guide ;  that  during  the  continuance  of  the 
militia  at  Bristol,  the  subscriber  was  on  terms  of  the  most  unre 
served  intimacy  with  Mr.  Reed,  and  had  frequent  confidential 
conversations  with  him  on  the  state  of  affairs,  which  then  wore 
the  darkest  appearance,  in  all  which  the  said  Mr.  Reed  never  in 
timated,  nor  had  the  subscriber  the  least  reason  to  suspect  he  had 
any  intention  of  abandoning  the  cause  or  arms  of  his  country  to 
join  those  of  the  enemy ;  that  it  appeared  to  the  subscriber,  that 
General  Cadwalader  during  his  stay  at  Bristol  depended  in  a 


great  measure  for  intelligence  on  the  said  Mr.  Reed  and  the  sub 
scriber,  which  their  knowledge  of  the  country  enabled  them  to 
obtain  for  him  daily ;  that  the  subscriber  had  frequent  conversa 
tions  with  the  said  Mr.  Reed  during  the  time  of  our  greatest  dif 
ficulty  and  distress,  in  none  of  which  did  it  ever  appear  to  be  the 
intention  of  Mr.  Reed  to  abandon  the  cause  of  his  country  by 
joining  the  enemy,  but,  on  the  contrary,  showed  every  disposition 
to  oppose  and  counteract  them  and  the  subscriber  verily  believes 
that  had  any  such  intention  been  formed  by  the  said  Mr.  Reed,  he 
would  have  communicated  it  to  the  subscriber;  that  he  never 
heard  from  General  Cadwalader  of  his  entertaining  any  doubt  of 
Mr.  Reed's  attachment  to  or  perseverance  in  the  cause  of 
America,  or  any  opinion  expressed  by  him  that  induced  a  belief 
that  said  Cadwalader  entertained  other  than  a  favourable  one 
touching  the  said  Reed's  zeal  or  activity  in  the  public  service. 

Trenton,  Otfober  20,  1782.  JOHN  Cox. 

Of  this  complete  denial,  General  Cadwalader  took  no 
notice,  for,  while  he  referred  injuriously  to  a  relatively 
humble  man  Mr.  Ellis,  no  word  of  contradiction  or  in 
sinuation  was  levelled  at  Colonel  Cox.  That  Mr.  Cox 
was  disposed  to  resent  any  disparagement  of  his  integrity 
or  fidelity  to  his  country,  is  apparent  from  the  follow 
ing  extract  of  a  letter  to  Mr.  Pettit,  (the  original  now 
in  my  possession,)  dated  at  his  country  place  near  Tren 
ton,  April  i4th,  1783.  It  has  never  before  been 
in  print: 

"I  observe  by  Bradford's  last  paper,  that  Cadwalader's  reply 
to  General  Reed's  remarks  is  published.  I  want  much  to  see  it 
though  I  disregard  anything  that  he  or  any  of  his  toad-eaters  can 
say  with  truth  touching  my  character,  and  great  as  they  may  be, 


59 

should  they  have  asserted  what  is  false,  I  will  make  them  answer 
for  their  audacity." 

I  have  said,  Cadwalader  made  no  direct  reference  to 
Mr.  Cox.  If,  however,  as  has  been  lately  suggested,  Col 
onel  Cox  was  the  officer  who  accompanied  Mr.  Reed  to 
Burlington,  there  is  a  remote  allusion  to  him  as  the  com 
panion  of  a  guilty  errand.  It  is  however  very  obscure 
and  would  scarcely  be  worth  noticing,  but  for  an  appa 
rent  confirmation  in  an  entry  in  what  is  known  as 
"Margaret  Morris'  Journal,"  which  has  lately  been  dis 
interred,  where  Colonel  Cox's  name  is  introduced.  Of 
this,  I  have  only  to  say  that  the  dates  disprove  the 
whole  story.  Those  who  think  that  the  character  of 
brave  men  can  be  blasted  in  history  by  an  old  or  young 
woman  repeating  what  was  told  by  a  household  female 
domestic — black  or  white — I  can  hardly  hope  to  convince. 
But  that  this  trash  has  more  than  once,  and  lately  (1863) 
been  re-printed;  that  it  is  kindred  in  some  respects  to 
the  graver  libels  I  have  been  considering  and  that  I  de 
sire  to  trample  out  even  the  minute  varieties  of  the  spe 
cies,  I  should  not  notice  it  even  to  this  extent.  General 
Cadwalader's  statement  having  been  fairly  examined 
and,  I  hope,  disposed  of,  I  turn  to  the  extrinsic  evidence 
he  adduced  on  the  single  point — for  to  it  I  now  con 
fine  myself — of  Mr.  Reed's  'dangerous  despondency'  of 
December,  1776. 

The  three  witnesses  are  Mr.  Philemon  Dickinson,  Mr. 
John  Nixon,  and  Dodor  Benjamin  Rush.  I  have  no- 


6o 

liced  Mr.  Nixon's  statement,  and  scarcely  think  it  worth 
while  to  refer  to  Mr.  Dickinson's,  which  is  simply  that 
Mr.  Reed  addressed  to  him  a  remark  he  regarded  as 
offensive. 

Dr.  Rush  is  the  witness  in  chief.  His  testimony 
dated  in  March,  1783,  may  be  thus  stated: 

That  in  friendly  and  accidental  conversation,  on  a 
ride  to  Headquarters,  Mr.  Reed  spoke  with  great  res- 
peel:  of  the  bravery  of  the  British  troops  and  with  great 
contempt  of  the  cowardice  of  the  Americans,  and  more 
especially  of  the  New  England  troops.  He  denounced 
'with  an  oath*  Mr.  John  Dickinson,  the  author  of  the 
Farmer's  Letters,  who,  k  was  rumoured,  for  slander  was 
very  busy  then,  had  deserted  to  the  enemy,  as  having 
begun  an  opposition  which  we  have  not  strength  to  finish. 
He  said  that  a  gentlemen  who  had  submitted  to  the 
enemy  had  acted  properly,  and  that  a  man  who  had  a 
family  did  right  to  take  care  of  them. 

Such  are  the  substantive  averments,  with  Doctor 
Rush's  gloss,  that  the  whole  conversation  indicated  a 
great  despair  of  the  American  cause,  and  the  addition, 
that  he  repeated  what  he  heard  to  his  brother  Jacob 
Rush  and  to  John  Adams,  who,  he  gravely  says,  replied: 
"That  the  powers  of  the  human  mind  are  combined 
together  in  a  variety  of  ways." 

If  Doctor  Rush  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  witness  in  sup 
port  of  a  charge  made  by  another,  the  obvious  comment 
on  this  testimony  is  that  it  is  utterly  destitute  of  pre- 


cision,  except  in  the  imprecation  put  into  Mr.  Reed's 
mouth  when  speaking  of  Mr.  Dickinson;  that  it  was  a 
distant  recollection,  through  seven  long  years  of  civil  war 
with  all  its  disturbing  elements,  and  that,  as  in  the  case  of 
General  Cadwalader,  it  was  not  seriously  regarded  at  the 
time,  since  "it  did  not  diminish  the  respect"  of  the  wit 
ness  for  Mr.  Reed.  To  the  suggestion  of  the  lapse  of 
time,  it  may  be  replied  that  it  was  Doctor  Rush's  habit, 
(as  is  well  known,)  to  keep  a  diary  or  note  book  in  which 
he  registered  all  the  irritating  occurrences  of  his  restless 
life  in  order  that  his  memory  even  of  the  remote  past 
might  be  kept  fresh,  and  his  resentments  never  allowed 
to  cool.*  This  is  true,  and  I  and  every  other  inquirer 
must  await  the  time  when  the  diary,  worthless  as  it  may 
be,  shall  be  given  to  the  world,  and  its  supposed  revela 
tions  can  be  scrutinized.  If,  in  December,  1776,  or  at 
any  time  before  1782,  Doctor  Rush  noted  a  conversation 
of  this  kind  with  Mr.  Reed,  let  the  entry  in  the  diary 
be  produced  and  it  shall  be  fairly  met.  As  Mr.  Ban 
croft  quotes  this  diary,  perhaps,  he  can  vouch  it.  If  he 
has  it  and  it  contains  any  disparagement  of  Mr.  Reed, 
he  surely  would  have  quoted  it.  I  have  no  idea  that  he 
has  it,  though  he  so  ostentatiously  cites  it.  Nor  is  the 
story  credible  that  Rush,  on  the  2jd,  'saw'  Washington 

*  In  Swift's  Journal  to  Stella,  September  9,  1710,  is  this  passage: 
"  For  an  hour  and  a  half  we  talked  treason  heartily  against  the  Whigs, 
their  baseness  and  ingratitude.  And  I  am  come  home  rolling  resentments 
in  my  mind,  and  forming  schemes  of  revenge,  full  of  which,  having 
written  down  some  parts,  I  go  to  bed." 


62 

write  the  watchword  'Victory  or  Death  !'  The  2jd  was 
the  day  when  the  Commander-in-Chief  wrote  his  confi 
dential  letter  to  Reed,  in  which  he  said:  "For  heaven's 
sake  keep  this  to  yourself  as  the  discovery  may  prove 
fatal  to  us;"  and  it  is  not  credible  that  he  would  tell  a 
military  secret  to  a  tattler  like  Doctor  Rush,  or  publish 
it  by  a  watchword^  or  even  determine  on  a  countersign 
so  long  in  advance.  The  whole  thing  don't  sound  like 
Washington,  except  perhaps  in  Mr.  Bancroft's  ears.* 

But  if  Doctor  Rush  be  "  Brutus,"  and  this,  on  the 
evidence,  is  my  belief;  if  it  was  he  who  started  this 
wretched  controversy,  then,  his  relation  to  the  whole 
affair  is  widely  different.  If  Doctor  Rush  was  "  Brutus," 
it  is  very  clear  that  so  far  as  he  is  concerned,  the  allegata 
and probata  strangely  conflict;  for  the  "Queries  of  Bru 
tus"  and  the  certificate  of  Rush  do  not  refer  to  the 
same  facts  or  similar  facts  in  any  single  point  of  resem 
blance.  Why,  one  may  ask,  this  discrepancy,  the  agents 
or  authors  being  the  same  ?  Was  it  that,  one  accusation 

*  The  only  other  reference  in  print  to  this  Diary  or  Note  Book  is 
in  a  letter  from  Mr.  Adams  to  Doftor  Rush,  dated  i8th  April,  1790, 
showing  that  it  runs  over  many  years.  He  says :  "  How  many  follies 
and  indiscreet  speeches  do  your  minutes  in  your  Note  Book  bring  to  my 
recollection,  which  I  had  forgotten  forever !  Alas !  I  fear  I  am  not  yet 
much  more  prudent.  Your  character  of  Mr.  Paine  is  very  well,  and 
very  just.  To  the  accusation  against  me,  which  you  have  recorded  in 
your  Note  Book  of  the  iyth  March  last,  I  plead  not  guilty.  I  deny 
all  attachment  to  monarchy,  and  I  deny  that  I  have  changed  my  princi 
ples  since  1776."  {Adams'  Works,  Vol.  IX. ,  page  566.)  It  was  a 
saying  of  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  that  he  "not  only  never  kept  a 
diary,  but  he  did  not  like  to  keep  company  with  any  man  who  did." 


63 

being  made  anonymously,  another  was  purposely  held 
back  to  be  used  as  a  sort  of  corroboration?  Why 
was  it,  "Brutus"  being  Rush,  that  the  Queries  referred 
to  what  Mr.  Reed  is  reputed  to  have  said  to  "the  com 
manding  officer  at  Bristol,"  and  not  at  all  to  what  he  said 
to  the  companion  of  the  ride  to  Newtown  ?  If  Doctor 
Rush  was  "Brutus,"  or  indeed  if  he  were  only  "Bru- 
tus's"  chief  authority,  then  the  question  directly  pre 
sents  itself,  and  shall  be  frankly  considered — Was  he 
a  credible  witness  ?  I  think,  I  can  demonstrate  he 
was  not. 

The  career  of  Doctor  Benjamin  Rush,  aside  from  his 
professional  merits,  of  which  I  am  utterly  unfit  to  judge 
was  that  of  a  busy,  restless,  indirect  man,  emphatically, 
a  man  of  animosities.  There  is  not  a  scandal  or  offen 
sive  truth  of  the  Revolution  within  the  sphere  of  his 
action  and  influence  that  did  not  take  wing  from  his 
tongue  or  pen.  He  was  a  fisher  in  troubled  waters  and 
upon  him  fell,  in  later  life,  a  fearful  retribution  in  the 
fierce  invectives  of  William  Cobbett, — the  Rush-Light, 
and  Peter  Porcupine.  The  poisoned  cup  came  back 
with  new  venom  infused. 

In  November,  1776,  Rush,  described  by  Mr.  Bancroft 
as  one  of  'the  best  of  the  whigs/  co-operated  with  Mr. 
Dickinson,  whom  he  had  recently,  in  private,  denounced, 
in  vehement  opposition  to  the  new  Constitution  of  Penn 
sylvania.  On  or  about  the  2ist  December,  within  a  day 
or  two  of  the  date  of  his  pretended  conversation  with 


64 

Mr.  Reed,  he  wrote  to  Richard  Henry  Lee  from  Bris 
tol:  "Since  the  captivity  of  General  Lee  a  distrust  has 
crept  in  among  the  troops  of  the  abilities  of  some  of 
our  Generals,  high  in  command.  They  expect  nothing 
now  from  Heaven-born  and  book-taught  Generals.*  I 
hope  in  our  next  promotions  we  shall  disregard  seniority." 
There  is  no  mistaking  this  allusion  to  Washington. 
Still  later  in  the  same  year,  Doctor  Rush  was  with  the 
army,  and,  on  hearing  that  his  father-in-law  (Mr.  Stock 
ton)  was  a  prisoner  and  had  been  maltreated,  he  wrote 
to  a  friend  in  the  following  strain  of  ludicrous  exaggera 
tion:  "Every  particle  of  my  blood  is  electrified  by  re 
venge  and  if  justice  cannot  be  done  in  any  other  way,  I 
declare  I  will,  in  defiance  of  the  authority  of  Congress 
and  the  power  of  the  army,  drive  the  first  rascally  Tory 
I  meet  with,  a  hundred  miles  barefoot  through  the  first 
deep  snow  that  falls  in  our  country  *  *  *  *  CI  long  to 
be  satiated  with  revenge  at  the  Scotch  Englishmen — Hy- 
der  Ali/  (the  Nana  Sahib  of  those  days,)  'is  the  standing 
toast  of  my  dinner  table."f  In  1777,  he  was  at  Princeton 
and  is  said  to  have  recorded  in  his  dreary  Note  Book 
that  General  Mercer  did  not  die  of  his  wounds,  but  from 
natural  causes.  In  March  1778,  for  the  work  of  secret 
accusation  of  some  body  never  seemed  to  intermit, 
General  Washington  wrote  to  Congress:  "Enclosed 

*  Doftor  Rush  either  caught  the  phrase  "Heaven-born  Generals" 
from  his  friend  Charles  Lee,  or  gave  it  to  him.  Bancroft  Vol.  9,  page  207. 
f  Letter  of  Rush  to  R.  H.  Lee,  December  30,  1776. 


65 

you  have  a  copy  of  a  letter,  which  I  received  a  few  days 
ago  from  Doctor  Rush.  As  this  letter  contains  charges 
of  a  very  heinous  nature  against  the  Director  General, 
Doctor  Shippen,  for  mal-practices  and  neglect  in  his 
department,  I  could  not  but  look  upon  it  as  meant  for 
a  public  accusation  and  have  therefore  thought  it  incum 
bent  on  me  to  lay  it  before  Congress.  I  have  showed  it 
to  Doctor  Shippen,  that  he  may  be  prepared  to  vindicate 
his  character  if  called  upon.  He  tells  me,  Doctor  Rush 
made  charges  of  a  private  nature  before  a  Committee  of 
Congress  appointed  to  hear  them,  which  he  could  not 
support.  If  so,  Congress  will  not  have  further  occasion 

to  trouble  themselves  in  the  matter." 

• 

But  Doctor  Rush  hunted  higher  game  than  Medical 
Directors.  In  the  winter  and  early  spring  of  1778, 
when  Congress  was  squabbling  at  Yorktown,  and  Wash 
ington  and  his  wretched  soldiers  were  suffering  at  Valley 
Forge,  Patrick  Henry,  then  Governor  ( of  Virginia,  re 
ceived  at  Williamsburg  an  anonymous  letter,  in  which 
this  passage  occurred: 

"The  Northern  army  has  shown  us  what  Americans  are  ca 
pable  of  doing  with  a  General  at  their  head.  The  spirit  of  the 
Southern  army  is  no  ways  inferior  to  the  spirit  of  the  Northern. 
A  Gates,  a  Lee,  or  a  Conway,  would  in  a  few  weeks  render  them 
an  irresistible  body  of  men.  The  last  of  the  above  officers  has 
accepted  the  new  office  of  Inspector  General  of  our  army,  in 
order  to  reform  abuses ;  but  the  remedy  is  only  a  palliative  one. 
In  one  of  his  letters  to  a  friend  he  says :  *•  A  great  and  good  God 
hath  decreed  America  to  be  free,  or  the  General  and  weak  coun- 


66 

sellers  would  have  ruined  her  long  ago.'  You  may  rest  assured 
of  each  of  the  fa£U  related  in  this  letter.  The  author  of  it  is 
one  of  your  Philadelphia  friends.  A  hint  of  his  name,  if  found 
out  by  the  handwriting,  must  not  be  mentioned  to  your  most  in 
timate  friend.  Even  the  letter  must  be  thrown  in  the  fire.  But 
some  of  its  contents  ought  to  be  made  public  in  order  to  awaken, 
enlighten  and  alarm  our  country — I  rely  upon  your  prudence." 


What  is  dignified  by  this  anonymous  assailant, 
as  'prudence/  sympathy  with  a  correspondent  willing 
to  wound  and  yet  afraid  to  strike,  was  no  part  of 
the  noble  Virginian's  nature.  He  did  not  recognise 
his  "Philadelphia  friend"  by  "the  handwriting." 
He  did  not  "throw  the  letter  into  the  fire,"  but  for- 

• 

warded  it  at  once  to  Washington,  with  this  comment: 
"While  you  face  the  armed  enemies  of  our  liberty  in 
the  field,  and  by  the  favour  of  God  have  been  kept  un 
hurt,  I  trust  your  country  will  never  harbour  in  her 
bosom  the  miscreant  who  would  ruin  her  best  supporter. 
I  wish  not  to  flatter;  but  when  arts  unworthy  honest 
men  are  used  to  defame  and  traduce  you,  I  think  it  not 
amiss,  but  a  duty,  to  assure  you  of  that  estimation,  in 
which  the  public  hold  you."  Washington's  answer  was 
prompt  and  decisive.  "The  anonymous  letter  with 
which  you  were  pleased  to  favour  me  was  written 
by  Doctor  Rush,  so  far  as  I  can  judge  from  a  similitude 
of  hands.  This  man  has  been  elaborate  and  studied  in 
his  professions  of  regard  for  me;  and  long  since  the  let 
ter  to  you."  ********  "This  is  not 


6? 

the  only  insidious  attempt  that  has  been  made  to  wound 
my  reputation.  There  have  been  others  equally  base, 
cruel,  and  ungenerous." 

In   1779,  Doctor  Rush  was  an  adive  participant  in 
the  heated,  local  politics  of  Pennsylvania,  a  contributor 
to  the  newspapers,  and  took  part  with  General  Cadwala- 
der  in  the  tumultuous    town    meetings  of  that    dreary 
year,  having  for  their  main  object  the  embarrassment  of 
Mr.  Reed's  Executive  Administration.     It  was  the  year 
of  "Fort  Wilson,"  and  its  bloody  incidents.     Then,  too, 
he  resumed  his  congenial  work  of  anonymous  scribbling. 
On  the  24th  of  October,  1779,  he  wrote  signing  it  "an  old 
friend"  to  Charles  Lee — a  moody,  discontented  and  dis 
graced  man,  who  hated  Washington  and  Reed  with  equal 
intensity:      "Have  patience;   time  and  posterity  will  do 
you  justice.     The  summer  flies  that  now  din  our  ears, 
must  soon  retire.     Nothing  but  virtue  and  real  abilities 
will  finally  pass  muster,  when  the  public  cool  a  little  from 
the  ferment  into  which  the  great  and  sudden  events  of  the 
late  Revolution  have  thrown  us.     I  would  rather  be  one 
of  your  dogs  in  a  future  history  of  the  present  war,  than 
possess  the  first  honours  that  are  now  current  in  America, 
with  the  characters  which  I  know  some  of  our  great  men 
merit.      Poor  Pennsylvania  has  become  the  most  miser 
able  spot  on  the  surface  of  the  globe."      In  1781,  Doc 
tor  Rush  with  the  fluency  which  his  animosities  stimu 
lated  wrote  to  Gates,  (also  under  a  cloud  and  disconten 
ted)  as  to  his  fears  of  a  monarchy  and  aristocracy  from 


68 

those  whom  he  describes  as  "the  Sachems  of  the  Poto 
mac  and  the  Hudson"  meaning  Washington  whom  he 
hated,  and,  probably,  the  Livingstons  and  Schuylers. 
And  so  it  continued  to  the  bitter  end,  for  we  find  that  Doc 
tor  Rush's  antipathy  to  Washington  if  not  to  his  friends 
long  survived  the  exasperations  of  war.  "Doctor  Rush 
tells  me,"  says  Mr.  Jefferson  in  his  'Ana'  of  twenty 
years  later,  (the  ist  of  February  1800,)  exactly  forty 
days  after  Washington  died  amidst  the  tears  of  a  whole 
people  with  the  exception  of  a  few  who  felt  as  did  Doc 
tor  Rush — "he  (Rush,)  tells  me  that  he  had  it  from  Asa 
Green,  that  when  the  Clergy  addressed  General  Wash 
ington  on  his  departure  from  the  Government,  it  was 
observed  in  their  consultation  that  he  had  never  on  any 
occasion  said  a  word  to  the  public  which  showed  a  belief 
in  the  Christian  religion,  and  they  thought  they  should 
so  pen  their  address  as  to  force  him  at  length  to  declare 
publicly  whether  he  was  a  Christian  or  not.  They  did  so. 
However,  he  observed,  the  old  fox  was  too  cunning  for 
them.  He  answered  every  article  of  their  address,  ex 
cept  that,  which  he  passed  over  without  notice." 

It  was  this  writer  of  anonymous  defamation,  this  ve 
hement  partisan,  he,  who  could  stand  on  Washington's 
fresh  grave,  and  scoff  at  the  great  inhabitant  below;  it 
was  he  who  was  Mr.  Reed's  chief  assailant  in  1782  and 
1783,  who,  in  all  probability,  initiated  the  controversy 
and  who  certainly  volunteered  to  be  a  chief  witness. 
Hence,  the  reader  will  see  the  relevancy  to  the  questions 


69 

I  have  been  considering,  of  this  analysis  of  Doctor 
Rush's  character.  As  a  witness  for  anything  in  which  his 
passions  were  involved,  I  have  a  right  to  describe 
him  as  utterly  unworthy  of  belief.  That  he  was  es 
pecially  hostile  to  Mr.  Reed  has  already  been  stated, 
and  will  not  be  disputed.  The  mysterious  diary,  if  it 
ever  sees  the  day,  will,  I  doubt  not,  be  a  new  revelation 
of  this  hatred,  which  did  not  abate  so  long  as  its  object 
was  among  living  men.  I  have  recently  seen  an  an 
cient  newspaper  which  throws  some  light  on  the  special 
ground  of  this  antipathy,  affecting  not  only  Doctor  Rush, 
but  his  brother  and  co-witness,  Mr.  Jacob  Rush.  It  is 
the  Freemans'  Journal  of  Wednesday,  March  9,  1785, 
four  days  after  Mr.  Reed's  death.  It  contains  a  state 
ment  by  Mr.  Sergeant,  who  had  been  Attorney  General 
of  Pennsylvania  in  the  early  part  of  Mr.  Reed's  Adminis 
tration,  as  to  the  circumstances  under  which  Mr.  Jacob 
Rush  had  become  an  unsuccessful  applicant  for  office  to 
President  Reed.  Mr.  Sergeant  thus  describes  the  ex 
periment  and  its  results: 


"  Mr.  Rush  desired  me  barely  to  mention  his  name,  as  Attor 
ney  General ;  not  wishing  to  make  a  point  of  it  or  to  urge  it ;  but 
merely  to  signify  his  willingness  to  accept,  in  case  of  an  appoint 
ment."  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  "I  was  determined  to  acquit 
myself  of  my  promise,  and  waited  on  the  President  (Mr.  Reed) 
to  let  him  know  that  I  was  in  hopes  they  had  provided  them 
selves  with  an  Attorney  General ;  and  that,  if  so,  I  had  drawn 
my  last  indictment.  He  was  polite  enough  to  ask  me  if  I  had 


70 

thought  of  a  proper  person.  Hitherto  I  had  mentioned  no  one. 
I  named  Mr.  Rush.  The  President  roared  out  in  a  peal  of 
laughter,  and  for  some  time  would  not  believe  me  in  earnest.  I 
told  him  what  had  passed,  hinted  that  I  did  not  apprehend  the 
matter  to  be  new  to  him,  and  intimated  that  the  government 
might  acquire  some  new  friends  by  the  measure.  He  said  that 
he  had  no  objection  to  the  obliging  Doctor  Rush  and  his  brother  -, 
though  they  very  little  deserved  any  favour  at  his  hands  from 
their  treatment  of  the  friends  of  the  Constitution,  but  his  ob 
jection  was  that  Mr.  Rush  was  not  equal  to  the  task.  The 
lawyers  on  the  other  side,  (I  forget  the  expression  but  I  believe 
it  was  the  Tory  lawyers,)  will  run  him  down  and  make  him  con 
temptible  and  us  ridiculous.  Besides,  he  has  not  patience  for  the 
drudgery  of  the  office ;  and  the  first  difficult  business  he  meets 
with  he  will  fly  in  a  passion  and  fling  a  resignation  in  our  faces. 
He  will  not  hold  the  office  two  months.  Recollect  sir,  the  man 
who  recommends  another  to  office,  ought  to  be  answerable  for 
him.  Will  you  vouch  for  Mr.  Rush  ?  Will  you  be  answerable 
for  his  abilities ;  for  his  steadiness  ?'  I  really  thought  that  by 
this  time  I  had  sufficiently  done  my  errand ;  so  far  as  to  intimate 
that  Mr.  Rush  was  willing  to  accept  the  office  of  Attorney  Gen 
eral.  I  went  no  further.  We  agreed  to  drop  the  subject  to  say 
nothing  of  it  to  any  one — and  this  is  the  first  time  that  I  have 
ever  fully  explained  it.  It  was  no  very  agreeable  answer  to  give  to 
Mr.  Rush,  and  he  never  asked  an  explanation.  It  was  perhaps 
best  as  it  was."  *****  "Mr.  Reed,  I  know  had  no 
desire  of  hearing  more  on  the  subject,  and  I  am  sure  I  had  none; 
for  I  must  confess  that  I  felt  foolish  enough  in  doing  the  errand, 
which  made  the  President's  laughing  at  me  the  more  sensibly  felt." 


These,  then,  are  the  disappointed  and  exasperated  men 
who  became  Mr.  Reed's  accusers  in  1782.  Sustained  as 
his  vindication  is  by  the  concurrent  testimony  of  Wash 
ington,  and  Greene,  and  Bayard,  and  Cox,  honoured  as 


71 

he  was  to  the  end  of  his  life,  by  his  fellow-citizens, 
his  fellow-soldiers,  and  the  Legislature  of  his  State,  I 
have  a  right  on  this  or  any  other  point  of  controversy 
to  assume  that  he  cannot  be  condemned  on  the  uncor 
roborated  testimony  of  two  of  his  most  embittered 
political  opponents.  There  are,  I  repeat,  no  other  wit 
nesses  on  this  point  against  him.  This  chapter  of  cal 
umny  is  closed. 

Having,  I  hope,  candidly  collated  the  testimony  on 
the  point  of  the  alleged  conversation  of  December,  1776, 
and  shown  how  utterly  untrustworthy  it  is,  I  proceed  to 
consider  the  other  specific  accusation — the  correspon 
dence  with  Count  Donop. 

This,  also,  I  should  prefer  giving  in  General  Cadwal- 
ader's  language,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  do  so,  for  it  is  so 
vaguely  stated  and  floats  so  indistinctly  through  his 
pages  that  it  eludes  the  attempt  to  embody  it  in  words. 
It  is  rather  insinuated  than  asserted.  In  substance,  how 
ever,  it  is  far  more  grave  than  the  one  I  have  been 
considering — as  much  more  so  as  an  overt  ad  of 
treason  is  than  a  whisper  of  timidity  in  the  ear  of 
a  friend.  It  was  this,  and  I  shall  not  understate  it: — 
"that  in  December,  1776,  when  Count  Donop,  the  com 
mander  of  the  Hessian  advanced  guard,  was  at  or  near 
Bordentown,  Mr.  Reed  sent  an  application  for  protec 
tion,  for  himself,  his  property,  and  can  intimate  friend,  'and 
that  this  matter  of  protection,  (thus  rather  hinted  than 
clearly  stated)  was  the  subject  of  correspondence  and  nego- 


tiation  afterwards,  continuing  until  the  reverse  at  Trenton, 
and  Donop's  retreat.  This,  I  think,  is  a  fair  statement 
of  it.  It  would  be  doing  General  Cadwalader  injustice, 
to  say  that  this  accusation  originated  with  him.  It  cer 
tainly  did  not,  but  being  made  by  others,  it  was  introduced 
into  his  pamphlet  as  a  make-weight,  cumulative  evidence 
of  Mr.  Reed's  imputed  criminality.  I  think  I  have  it 
in  my  power  to  show  its  exact  parentage,  and  that  it,  too, 
had  its  source  in  personal  and  political  animosity.  To 
make  the  matter  intelligible,  and  to  show  it  had  attracted 
Mr.  Reed's  attention  before  General  Cadwalader  as 
sumed  the  paternity  of  it,  I  will  here  quote  his  account 
of  the  transaction  as  given  in  the  original  pamphlet. 
He  says:  "As  intelligence  was  of  the  utmost  impor 
tance  both  to  General  Washington  and  to  ourselves,  in 
conjunction  with  Colonel  Cox  of  New  Jersey,  every  ex 
ertion  in  our  power  was  made  to  procure  it:  This  we 
were  enabled  to  effect  through  the  medium  of  some  per 
sons  of  Burlington  with  whom  our  residence  had  formed 
an  interest.  In  the  course  of  this  business  it  was  neces 
sary  to  pass  frequently  to  that  place.  On  one  of  these 
occasions  the  inhabitants  applied  to  me  for  relief  from 
the  incursions  of  our  troops,  especially  the  galleymen, 
who  distressed  them  without  affording  an  advantage  to 
us.  As  the  Hessian  patrols  came  daily  to  town,  I  ob 
served  it  would  be  difficult  and  hardly  reasonable  to  re 
strain  our  troops,  unless  the  enemy  would  submit  to  the 
like  restrictions.  It  was  then  suggested  that  such  a  pro- 


73 

position  should  be  made  to  Count  Donop,  who  com 
manded  the  British  and  Hessian  troops;  and  I  wrote  a 
few  unsealed  lines  to  that  effect,  which  an  inhabitant  of 
Burlington  undertook  to  deliver.  The  whole  transac 
tion  was  of  a  public  nature,  and  in  the  presence  of  several 
gentlemen  who  had  accompanied  me  from  Bristol.  The 
bearer  of  my  letter  found  Count  Donop  on  his  march 
to  the  Black  Horse,  and  brought  back  an  open  letter 
mentioning  that  circumstance,  and  that  as  soon  as  his 
situation  would  admit,  he  would  appoint  a  place  of  con 
ference  on  the  proposition.  Having  thus  far  complied 
with  the  desire  of  the  inhabitants  of  Burlington,  who 
chiefly  are  of  a  peaceable  quiet  character,  and  from  their 
inoffensive  conduct,  as  well  as  the  services  we  were  daily 
receiving  from  some  of  them,  entitled  to  this  office  of 
kindness,  I  returned  to  Bristol.  But  that  I  may  close 
this  transaction,  without  interrupting  my  narrative  of 
events,  I  shall  here  observe,  that  I  was  informed  a  flag 
came  into  Burlington  a  few  days  after,  with  an  open 
letter  from  Count  Donop,  appointing  a  place  of  con 
ference,  which  was  sent  over  to  Bristol  and  delivered  to 
General  Cadwalader  in  my  absence.  The  tide  of  Ameri 
can  fortune  soon  after  turned;  Count  Donop  retreated 
to  Brunswick  and  I  never  saw  or  heard  from  him  after 
wards." 

From  this,  as  well  as  a  reference  in  Margaret  Morris' 
Diary,  I  incline  to  the  belief  that  in  it  as  in  the  other 

calumny  Colonel  Cox  was  implicated,  and  that  he  was 

10 


74 

"the  intimate  friend"  so  darkly  alluded  to  in  this  part  of 
the  Cadwalader  pamphlet.  He  had,  and  I  believe  Mr. 
Reed  had  not,  extensive  property  in  New  Jersey  within  the 
enemy's  lines,  and  was  closely  associated  in  these  errands 
of  peril.  These  being  the  counter  allegations,  one  of  a 
deep  plot  of  secret  treason  and  correspondence  with  the 
enemy;  the  other,  of  an  open  negotiation  for  the  protec 
tion  of  helpless  non-combatants;  let  us  see  what  are  the 
proofs  adduced.  The  evidence  on  what  I  may  call  the 
side  of  the  accusation,  it  will  be  observed  is  purely  hear 
say.  No  human  being  of  his  own  knowledge  can  say  a 
word.  It  is  traced  indirectly  to  one  individual,  Mr. 
Robert  Lenox,  a  commissary  in  the  British  service,  who 
gives  no  testimony,  but  who  is  reported  to  have  com 
municated  the  story  to  his  brother,  Mr.  David  Lenox, 
who  in  turn  furnished  it  to  General  Cadwalader.  The 
certificate  is  dated  March,  1783,  four  months  after  the 
Provisional  Treaty  had  been  signed,  and  when,  one 
would  think,  there  was  no  insuperable  difficulty  in  pro 
curing  the  direct  evidence  from  New  York,  where  then 
and  for  many  years  afterwards  Mr.  Robert  Lenox  lived. 
Perhaps  however  at  a  time  when  the  wounds  and  passions 
of  war  were  fresh,  it  was  perilous  to  call  as  a  witness  against 
a  patriot  soldier  "a  Deputy  Commissary  of  Prisoners 
under  the  British  king."  It  was  better  to  rely  on  the 
second-hand  testimony  of  Mr.,  or  as  he  was  better 
known  even  within  my  recollection,  Major  Lenox, 
who  held  some  military  rank  in  the  American  service. 


75 

The  testimony  was  thus  hearsay  without  excuse  or  neces 
sity.  Mr.  Robert  Lenox  never  testified  directly,  and  1 
am  glad  to  note  this,  because  he  was  a  gentlemen  of 
high  character  and  unquestioned  integrity.  That  Mr. 
David  Lenox  was  a  man  of  violent  passions  and,  like 
Doctor  Rush  and  most  of  those  who  came  forward  to 
testify  against  Mr.  Reed,  a  bitter  partisan  of  what  was 
known  as  the  Anti-Constitutional  party,  is  well  known 
in  this  community.  I  infer  that  he,  too,  had  a  per 
sonal  grievance,  from  an  entry  that  I  find  in  the  minutes 
of  the  Executive  Council  for  1779. 

PRESIDENT  REED  TO  CHIEF  JUSTICE  McKEAN. 

Council  Chamber,  August  10,  1779. 
SIR: 

We  have  been  just  informed  that  David  Lenox  has  grossly 
insulted  Robert  Smith,  Esq.,  one  of  the  agents  of  the  forfeited 
estates,  in  the  execution  of  his  office.  We  request  you  to  take 
the  most  vigorous  measures  on  this  occasion,  as  not  only  the 
honour,  but  the  interest  of  the  State  is  deeply  concerned.  It 
being  our  full  intention  to  vindicate  not  only  the  officers  of  the 
Government,  but  support  them  with  our  utmost  weight  and  in 
fluence.  We  are  also  informed  that  one  Captain  Nichols,  or 
Nicholson,  a  Continental  officer  had  a  share  in  the  affray.  If 
it  should  prove  so,  we  trust  some  other  notice  will  be  taken  of 
his  conduct,  besides  that  of  the  ordinary  course  of  justice. 
I  am  sir,  with  due  respedl, 

Your  obedient  humble  servant, 

JOSEPH  REED, 

President.  * 

*   Pennsylvania  Archives,  1778-9,  page  637,  328.     This  "Nichols" 
was  probably  the  Francis  Nichols  of  the  Cadwalader  pamphlet. 


76 

Six  months  after  this,  it  seems  Mr.  David  Lenox 
"obtained  permission  for  an  interview  with  his  brother 
at  Elizabethtown,"  and  there  "was  alarmed"  by  the  in 
formation  of  Mr.  Reed's  application  to  Count  Donop 
four  years  before.  He  returned  to  Philadelphia  and 
used  this  story  as  a  weapon  of  offence  against  Mr.  Reed, 
then  President,  t  "I  thought  it  my  duty"  says  he  in  his 
certificate,  "to  mention  it  publicly  to  prevent  further 
power  being  put  in  the  hands  of  a  man  who  would  make 
a  bad  use  of  it."  In  his  own  language  he  'propagated*  it. 
The  fruit  of  this  ineffectual  gossip  was,  that  in  June  of 
the  same  year  (1780)  Mr.  Reed  with  his  Council  was  in 
vested  by  the  Assembly  with  what  were  then  considered 
Dictatorial  powers,  the  authority  to  declare  martial  law, 
and  in  the  autumn  he  was  elected  for  the  third  time 
President  of  the  Executive  Council  of  Pennsylvania. 
In  May,  1781,  Mr.  Robert  Lenox  came  into  the  Dela 
ware  with  a  flag  of  truce.  It  was  a  time  of  great  and 
peculiar  peril.  The  embers  of  the  mutiny  of  the  Penn 
sylvania  line  were  not  cool.  The  enemy  was  vigilant 
and  active  everywhere.  The  affairs  of  the  States,  and 
especially  of  Pennsylvania  were  apparently  desperate. 
There  was  not  a  dollar  in  the  Treasury  to  pay  ordinary 
expenses.  Emissaries  were  engaged  in  schemes  of  as 
sassination,  President  Reed  being  one  of  the  designated 
viftims.*  Precautionary  measures  were  necessary,  and 

*  Governor  Livingston's  letter,  11  April,  1781. 


77 

Mr.  Robert  Lenox  was  refused  permission  to  visit 
Philadelphia  and  was  kept  "for  four  weeks  on  board  ship 
nine  miles  below  the  City/'  Here,  again,  it  seems  the 
Donop  story  was  repeated,  with  the  same  intimation  of 
an  unknown  associate  of  crime.  Still,  it  produced  no 
effect,  and  gained  no  credit.  In  the  interval,  Arnold, 
who  was  Mr.  Reed's  first  open  accuser,  had  become  a 
confessed  traitor,  and  no  one  seemed  willing  to  use  the 
weapons  he  had  tried.  After  a  careful  search  through  the 
newspapers  of  the  time,  which,  until  our  day,  have  had  no 
rivals  in  ferocity,  I  do  not  find  a  trace  of  this  fiction. 
It  was  no  doubt  to  whispers  of  this  form  of  calumny 
Mr.  Reed  referred  in  his  pamphlet,  in  the  passage  whfch 
I  have  quoted.* 

This  then  is  the  whole  evidence,  with  the  exception 
of  Mr.  Bancroft's  Hessian  diary  presently  to  be  noticed: 
the  repetition  by  heated  and  prejudiced  men  of  what  they 
supposed  had  been  told  them  years  before,  by  an  avowed 
enemy,  an  officer  in  the  Royal  Army.  On  the  other 


*  It  may  have  been  with  reference  to  this  specific  accusation — the 
David  Lenox  gossip — that  Mr.  Reed  wrote  to  General  Greene  in  June 
1781.  "After  all,  and  after  repeated,  gross  and  illiberal  attacks  of 
every  kind  from  weakness  to  treason,  for  great  pains  have  been  taken  to 
prove  me  in  the  interests  of  the  enemy,  I  am  still  in  good  health  and 
spirits,  not  disgusted  with  the  service  of  my  country  though  ready  to 
give  place  to  any  man  who  can  serve  it  better.  The  body  of  the  people 
continue  my  friends  because  they  believe  that  I  am,  as  I  truly  am, 
theirs;  of  this  I  have  given  the  most  unequivocal  proof,  because  I  have 
consented  to  watch  for  three  years  that  others  might  sleep — to  be  poor 
that  they  might  grow  rich."  2d  Life  of  Reed,  page  360. 


78 

hand,  putting  aside  all  suggestions  of  inherent  improba 
bility  in  a  charge  "so  fathered  and  so  husbanded/*  I  beg 
the  candid  reader's  attention  to  the  direct  testimony  on 
which  the  averment  rests,  that  Mr.  Reed's  written  inter 
course  with  Count  Donop  was  an  innocent  and  legiti 
mate  intercession  for  the  poor  people  of  Burlington. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  testimony  of  the  person 
who  carried  Mr.  Reed's  letter  to  the  Hessian  Head- 
Quarters,  which  cannot  be  impaired  by  General  Cadwala- 
der's  unsustained  assertion  that  he  was  a  disaffected  man. 
If  he  were  so,  he  would  not  have  been  disqualified  for 
the  errand.  If  he  were  so,  he  might  naturally  enough 
seek  to  make  peace  for  himself,  and  as  naturally  seek  to 
implicate  Mr.  Reed  and  his  unknown  friend.  Mr.  Ellis 
survived  the  Revolution  and  held  positions  of  dignity 
under  the  new  government.  This  is  his  positive,  and 
as  I  have  said,  to  this  hour,  uncontradicted  statement: 

AFFIDAVIT  BY  DANIEL  ELLIS,  Eso^,  FORMERLY  HIGH  SHERIFF 

AND  ONE  OF  THE  JUDGES  OF  THE  COURT  OF  COMMON 

PLEAS  FOR  BURLINGTON. 

State  of  New  Jersey,  Burlington  County,  ss. 

PERSONALLY  came  and  appeared  before  me,  the  subscriber,  one 
of  the  Justices  of  the  Peace  in  the  said  county,  assigned  to 
keep,  &c.  Daniel  Ellis,  of  the  City  of  Burlington,  Esq., 
a  person  to  me  well  known  and  worthy  of  good  credit,  who 
being  duly  sworn  on  the  Holy  Evangelists  of  Almighty  God, 
deposethand  saith:  That  some  time  in  the  month  of  Dec 
ember,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord,  one  thousand  seven  hun 
dred  and  seventy-six,  tne  Philadelphia  militia  lying  at  Bris- 


79 

tol,  the  gallies  in  the  river,  and  the  Hessians  under  Count 
Donop  at  Bordentown  and  the  Black  Horse ;  the  town  of  Bur 
lington  was  much  distressed  by  small  parties  coming  in  and  com 
mitting  excesses  on  the  inhabitants ;  that  Joseph  Reed,  Esq.,  then 
Adjutant  General  of  the  Continental  Army,  being  occasionally 
in  town  was  applied  to  by  some  of  the  inhabitants,  as  this  depon 
ent  understood,  to  procure  them  some  relief,  and  particularly  to 
restrain  the  galley  men  and  militia  from  coming  into  the  town; 
that  in  order  to  effect  this  it  was  necessary  that  the  enemy's  par 
ties  should  be  equally  restrained,  and  the  said  Mr.  Reed  agreed 
to  write  a  letter  to  the  Count  Donop  to  that  effecl: ;  that  this 
deponent  went  to  the  office  of  James  Kinsey,  Esq.,  where  the 
said  General  Reed  was  with  Colonel  Shee  of  Philadelphia ;  that 
several  of  the  inhabitants  were  also  present ;  that  the  said  Joseph 
Reed  asked  this  deponent  if  his  son  would  carry  a  letter  to  Count 
Donop  for  the  above  purpose ;  to  which  this  deponent  replied, 
that  if  it  was  for  the  relief  of  the  town  he  would  go  himself; 
upon  which  a  letter  was  immediately  writ;  that  this  deponent 
went  the  next  morning  with  the  letter  (which  to  the  best  of  this 
deponent's  remembrance  was  unsealed)  and  delivered  the  same 
to  Count  Donop,  who  soon  after  returned  an  answer  in  writing, 
which  this  deponent  understood  from  the  said  Count  Donop  was 
to  appoint  a  place  for  a  conference  upon  the  subject,  which  letter 
this  deponent  delivered  to  the  said  General  Reed,  (the  said  Mr. 
Reed  and  Colonel  Shee  waiting  for  his  return) ;  that  some  few 
days  after  an  officer  came  to  Burlington  with  a  flag,  with  a  letter 
from  Count  Donop  to  the  said  General  Reed ;  that  the  people 
of  Burlington  being  anxious  to  effect  the  business,  exerted  them 
selves  to  get  the  said  letter  over  the  river,  (the  river  being  then 
full  of  ice) ;  that  upon  getting  over  they  found  that  General  Reed 
was  at  Philadelphia,  so  that  the  said  officer  did  not  see  him,  nor 
did  any  intercourse  pass  between  them  to  this  deponent's  know 
ledge  or  belief;  that  this  transaction  was  of  public  notoriety,  and 
as  this  deponent  verily  believes,  calculated  for  the  sole  relief  of 
the  inhabitants  of  said  town,  then  much  distressed  by  the  irregu 
larity  of  the  troops  and  galley  men,  who  came  into  the  town 


8o 

under  various  pretences  and  plundered  and  ill  treated  the  inhabi 
tants.     And  further  this  deponent  satth  not. 

DANIEL  ELLIS. 
Sworn  before  me,  the  23d  day 

of  October,  1783. 

SAM  How.* 

I  have  said  that,  in  adopting  and  re-producing  this 
Donop  calumny,  Xjreneral  Cadwalader  deals  with  it  vague 
ly  as  if  he  was  not  quite  sure  of  the  ground  he  was 
treading  or  of  the  weapon  that  had  been  put  in  his  hands. 
The  nearest  approach  to  precision  is  this  interrogative 
imputation:  "Is  it  not  more  than  probable  that  at  the 
interview  you  proposed  under  cover  of  serving  the  in 
habitants  of  Burlington  you  intended  to  confer  with 
Count  Donop  upon  the  subject  of  your  own  interest  and 
personal  safety?"  Here,  the  insinuation  is  clear  enough 
and  I  so  accept  it;  and  now  shall  show  by  evidence  under 
General  Cadwalader' s  own  hand,  not  known  to  Mr.  Reed 
when  he  published  his  pamphlet,  that  he  was  perfectly 
well  acquainted  with  the  object  of  the  proposed  confer 
ence,  and  that  the  letter  which  Count  Donop  wrote  came 
to  General  Cadwalader  and  was  answered  by  him. 

*  A  friend  in  New  Jersey,  Mr.  James  W.  Wall,  a  Senator  of  the 
United  States,  of  whom  I  made  inquiry  as  to  Mr.  Ellis,  writes  to  me: 
"Daniel  Ellis  spoken  of  in  the  Cadwalader  pamphlet,  by  whom  your 
grandfather  sent  the  letter  to  Count  Donop  with  a  flag,  was  not  disafeft- 
ed,  but,  on  the  contrary,  he  assisted  the  cause  of  the  Colonies  and  was 
in  consultation  with  the  patriots.  He  was  a  man  of  considerable  landed 
estate,  which,  of  course  would  have  been  confiscated  if  he  had  been 
what  Cadwalader  describes;  but  he  was  in  full  enjoyment  of  it  up  to 
the  day  of  his  death,  long  after  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War.*7 


8i 

Before  doing  so,  let  me  refer  to  another  matter  inci 
dentally.  When  it  is  sought  to  disparage  my  ancestor, 
the  Diary  of  Margaret  Morris  is  cited  as  authentic  even 
when  she  chronicles  the  babble  of  her  servant  girls.  I 
desire  to  refer  the  reader  to  it  now  for  another  purpose; 
as  the  record  of  what  passed  under  her  own  observation, 
at  a  period  when  her  perceptions  were  quickened  by  all 
sorts  of  anxieties,  and  when  she  bore  willing  testimony 
to  the  kind  offices  of  those  with  whom — as  her  diary 
proves — she  had  no  other  sympathies.  Recalling  the 
Donop  accusation  and  Mr.  Reed's  reply,  it  should  be 
remembered  that  this  diary  never  saw  the  light  'till  fifty 
years  after  the  accuser  and  the  accused  were  in  their 
graves.  It  will  be  found  completely  to  sustain  Mr.  Reed. 

On  the  25th  of  December  is  the  entry  which  is  mate 
rial  to  the  question  of  the  real  relations  to  Count  Donop. 
It  is  as  follows: 

"December  25th.  An  officer  said  to  be  gone  to  Bristol,  from 
the  Count  de  Nope,  with  a  flag,  and  offers  of  letting  our  town 
remain  a  neutral  post.  General  Reed  at  Philadelphia.  An  ex 
press  sent  to  him,  and  we  hear  he  is  to  meet  the  Count  to-mor 
row  at  Jno.  Antrim's  and  settle  the  preliminaries. 

December  26th.  Very  stormy ;  we  fear  General  Reed  will 
not  meet  the  Count  to-day.  A  great  number  of  flat-bottom 
boats  gone  up  the  river ;  we  cannot  learn  where  they  are  going  to. 

December  2yth.  A  letter  from  General  Reed  to  his  brother, 
informing  him  that  Washington  had  had  an  engagement  with  the 
regulars  on  the  25th,  early  in  the  morning,  taking  them  by  sur 
prise  j  killed  50  and  took  900  prisoners — the  loss  on  our  side  not 
known — not  suffered  to  be  public." 


82 

The  letter  of  Donop,  thus  by  a  flag  publicly  forwarded 
to  Bristol  was,  as  Mr.  Reed  in  his  pamphlet  assumed, 
put  into  General  Cadwalader's  hands  and  answered  by 
him.  A  copy  of  the  answer,  in  Cadwalader's  hand 
writing,  (open  to  the  inspection  of  any  one  who  has  a 
right  to  ask  for  it)  fs  in  my  possession.  It  is  in  these 
words : 

"Bristol,  December  25,  1776. 
SIR, 

As  Colonel  Reed  is  not  at  this  post  at  present,  I  opened  the 
letter  addressed  to  him.  There  is  no  other  person  here  so  fully 
acquainted  with  the  business  he  proposed  mentioning  to  you  at 
the  interview  he  requested.  I  expect  he  will  return  to-morrow 
morning  to  this  post,  and  he  will  then  request  you  to  name 
another  time  and  place  which  may  be  convenient  to  you.  I  did 
not  receive  the  flag  to-day  till  half  past  10,  A.  M. 

I  am  Sir,  &c.,  &c. 
To  COLONEL  DONOP."  JOHN  CADWALADER. 

General  Cadwalader  in  1783,  when  he  adopted  the  hear 
say  accusation  of  Mr.  David  Lenox,  must  have  forgotten 
his  own  letter  of  1776  to  Count  Donop,  to  which  no 
other  construction  can  be  given  than  that  the  writer  knew 
the  negotiations  to  be  innocent. 

Among  Mr.  Reed's  manuscripts,  I  find  the  rough 
draught  of  an  Address  after  the  recovery  of  this  letter. 
It  shows  an  intention  to  make  another  appeal  to  the 
public,  and  incidentally  refers  to  the  Cadwalader  pamph 
let  as  the  joint  production  of  Doctor  Benjamin  Rush, 


83 

Dr.  William  Smith,  (Provost  of  the  College  and  an  in 
veterate  enemy  of  Mr.  Reed)  and  General  Cadwalader. 
This  intention  was  never  carried  out,  and  my  conviction, 
from  a  careful  study  of  everything  within  my  reach  con 
nected  with  this  affair,  not  to  speak  again  of  the  honours 
and  marks  of  public  and  private  confidence  afterwards 
conferred,  is,  that  in  its  day  and  generation,  this  attack 
on  Mr.  Reed  was  completely  abortive.  Nor  should  it 
be  forgotten  that,  in  the  long  interval  of  nearly  a  centu 
ry  since  the  Revolution,  no  historical  or  biographical 
writer,  English  or  American,  friend  or  enemy,  with  one 
exception,  ever  has  alluded  to  it.  Neither  Gordon — cer 
tainly  no  friend — nor  Stedman,  a  loyalist,  anxious  to 
discover  flaws  in  any  American's  reputation — nor  Gray- 
don,  nor  Ramsay,  nor  Marshall,  nor  Adams,  nor  Sparks, 
nor  Washington  Irving,  nor  Lord  Mahon,  nor  any  one 
ever  found  a  trace  of  evidence  in  support  of  this  wretch 
ed  accusation,  or  if  they  did,  condescended  to  stoop  and 
follow  it.  Mr.  Galloway  and  the  fugitive  loyalists,  ex 
amined  in  Parliament  in  1779,  made  no  allusion  to  it. 

Writing  to  me  on  kindred  topics,  as  far  back  as  1 842, 
Mr.  Sparks  said: 

"I  can  say  with  perfect  sincerity  and  truth,  that  in  my  exami 
nation  of  documents  and  papers  relating  to  the  Revolution,  I 
have  seen  nothing  that  could  give  countenance  to  charges  against 
General  Reed.  There  is  surely  nothing  to  this  effecl:  in  Wash 
ington's  papers,  or  in  those  of  other  general  officers  which  have 
come  under  my  inspection.  He  had  a  slight  difference  with  the 
Commander-in-chief  in  1776,  but  this  was  of  short  duration, 


84 

and  it  was  after  this  event  that  Washington  offered  him  the  com 
mand  of  the  Cavalry;  and  he  often  consulted  him  on  military 
affairs,  particularly  in  regard  to  the  State  of  Pennsylvania.  He 
was  appointed  a  Brigadier  General  by  Congress,  and  was  chosen 
a  member  of  that  body  from  his  native  state.  During  a  large 
part  of  the  winter  at  Valley  Forge  he  was  present  in  camp,  as 
one  of  a  Committee  from  Congress  for  re-organizing  the  army ; 
and  he  afterwards  held  the  office  of  President  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  continued  in  the  public  service  till  near  the  end  of  the  war. 
Are  we  now  to  form  so  low  an  opinion  of  the  sagacity  and  wis 
dom  of  the  leaders  of  that  day  as  to  believe  that  they  would  sus 
tain  in  such  responsible  stations  a  man  whose  patriotism  they  sus 
pected,  and  least  of  all  a  man  whom  they  looked  upon  as  an 
enemy  in  disguise  ?  The  thing  is  so  incredible  in  itself  that  it 
requires  the  strongest  positive  proof  to  clothe  it  with  even  a 
shadow  of  probability ;  for  we  cannot  fix  so  dark  a  stain  upon 
the  memory  of  General  Reed  without  seriously  implicating  the 
character  of  the  eminent  patriots  who  gave  him  their  support  and 
confidence. 

In  the  public  offices  in  London  I  have  examined  all  the  cor 
respondence  between  the  British  officers  in  America,  and  the 
Ministers,  during  the  war.  I  have  no  remembrance  of  seeing 
General  Reed's  name  mentioned  in  these  papers  on  any  occasion." 

Mr.  Bancroft  wrote  from  London  in  1848: 

"In  looking  through  the  archives  here  which  have  been  opened 
to  me  with  great  liberality  I  have  looked  for  traces  of  your  grand 
father  but  as  yet  have  found  nothing  of  much  importance.  If  I 
do,  I  shall  communicate  it  to  you." 

He  has,  it  seems,  been  more  successful  since,  but  he 
had  to  go  to  the  shameful  records  of  Brunswick  and 
Hesse  Cassel,  to  the  diaries  and  note  books  of  mercenary 
strangers,  ignorant  of  the  English  language — 'Ewalds' 


and  'Bourmeisters'  and  even  Munchausens  (p.2ii) before 
he  succeeded  in  finding  what  he  seems  to  have  craved  so 
eagerly.  I  throw  into  a  note  a  characteristic  comment 
on  Hessian  testimony  and  Hessian  conduct,  from  the 
pen  of  a  friend  of  Mr.  Bancroft,  one  who  stands  high 
on  the  canon  of  New  England.* 

I  have  spoken  of  an  exception,  I  mean  in  English. 
In  the  year  1787 — two  years  after  Mr.  Reed's  death, 
there  was  published  in  London  a  pamphlet  entitled 
"Remarks  on  the  Travels  of  the  Marquis  de  Chastellux 


*  "  The  Baroness  de  Riedesel  was  a  lady  deserving  ail  credit  when  she 
tells  what  she  has  seen  though  she  may  have  put  a  wrong  construction 
upon  it.  But  the  case  is  not  exa&ly  the  same  as  to  everything  which 
she  may  have  heard.  Perhaps  she  did  not  understand  English  perfeftly 
well.  She  was  the  wife  of  a  person  engaged  in  one  of  the  most  nefa 
rious  occupations  that  human  mind  and  muscle  can  be  put  to.  He  and 
his,  had  no  quarrel  with  us  and  ours,  but  he  had  been  let  out  for  hire  by 
the  wretch  called  Eleftor  of  Hesse  Cassel  to  come  hither  and  make  our 
wives  and  children  widows  and  fatherless.  If  he  could  come  on  such 
a  business,  it  was  very  fit  that  his  wife  should  come  with  him.  Heaven 
knows  he  stood  enough  in  need  of  every  solace  of  domestic  love.  He 
failed  in  what  he  came  for.  He  sold  his  own  blood  and  not  ours.  We 
caught  him  and  his  attendant  reptiles  and  drew  their  fangs.  If  women 
whose  husbands,  fathers,  sons,  he  would  have  butchered,  perhaps  had  but 
chered,  spat  on  the  ground  in  sign  of  anger  as  his  wife  passed,  it  was  a 
very  unfeminine,  discourteous,  indecent  a6l,  though  it  was  evidently  an 
affront  designed  for  him  rather  than  for  her;  and  something  may  per 
haps  be  pardoned  to  the  rage  of  those  against  whom  injuries  so  enor 
mous,  so  wicked,  being  committed  because  God's  providence  and  man's 
valor  dashed  the  miscreants  to  the  earth  in  the  flush  of  their  abominable 
enterprise.  Hired  stabbers  as  long  as  they  were  in  arms — house  thieves 
as  soon  as  they  were  beaten,  they  had  nothing  better  to  claim  at  the 
hands  of  meekness  itself  than  mere  forbearance  and  humanity."  North 
American  Review,  July,  1852. 


86 

in  North  America."  There  is  some  slight  reason  to  be 
lieve  that  the  author  of  this  was  either  General  Arnold, 
or  some  mercenary  writer  whom  he  had  suborned.  The 
slander,  there,  assumes  a  form,  on  which  I  have  no  other 
comment  to  make,  than  that  it  is  the  accusation  of  an 
anonymous  assailant  whose  testimony  is  the  loosest  hear 
say,  and,  if  it  has  any  direct  application,  affects  a  man, 
Mr.  Bowes  Reed,  who,  so  far  as  my  knowledge  extends, 
maintained  throughout  a  long  life,  extending  beyond  the 
agitations  and  asperities  of  Revolutionary  times,  an  un- 
impeached  character.  This  writer,  whoever  he  was,  says: 

."I  join  in  the  Marquis  de  Chastellux's  observations  on  Mr. 
Reed.  I  know  in  the  prosperous  situation  of  the  British  affairs 
in  1777,  (wV)  and  before  the  unhappy  event  at  Trenton,  that 
Bowes  Reed,  a  brother  of  Governor  Reed,  crossed  the  Delaware 
from  Pennsylvania  and  took  with  the  prescribed  forms  a  British  pro 
tection  from  a  Hessian  officer,  I  believe  Colonel  Donop,  at  die 
same  time,  he  requested  one  for  his  brother,  the  Governor,  which 
Colonel  Donop  declined  giving  him  unless  he  should  appear  in 
person.  Soon  after,  Bowes  Reed  acted,  himself,  in  a  civil  employ 
ment  in  the  State  of  New  Jersey ;  and  the  Governor,  it  is  well 
known,  as  the  Marquis  observes,  "published  and  exaggerated  the 
offers  that  were  made  him  by  Governor  Johnson,  and  attained 
his  end  of  playing  a  leading  part  in  the  country."  pp.  29,  30.* 

*  I  first  heard  of  this  form  of  calumny  from  my  friend,  Mr.  George  H. 
Moore,  of  New  York,  who  was  kind  enough  to  send  me  the  extract  I  have 
quoted,  a  copy  of  the  pamphlet  being  in  the  Astor  Library.  In  this 
pamphlet,  Washington  is  thus  spoken  of  (page  37)  :  "  Mr.  Washington 
is  hard-hearted  and  versatile.  He  assumed  the  appearance  of  lenity  and 
forbearance — He  had  the  power  to  crush  all  rivals  and  his  jealousy 

made  him  employ  it The  American  buzzard  must  be  stripped 

of  his  plumage Whether  he  continue  a  land  jobber  in  Virginia 


If  the  conjecture  has  any  foundation  that  this  pamph 
let,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  emanated  from  Arnold, 
then  it  is  an  impressive  truth  that,  while  no  contempo 
rary  of  Mr.  Reed,  those  who  died  with  him,  or  those 
who  long  survived  him,  ever  was  willing  to  countenance 
or  repeat  this  gross  charge,  his  last,  as  his  first  open  ac 
cuser  was  He,  who  has  the  ineffable  infamy  of  being  the 
one  American  traitor,  to  whom  every  evil  impulse 
and  habit  of  our  nature  seems  to  have  been  traced,  and 
in  favour  of  whom  not  even  a  literary  paradox  has  ever 
been  suggested.  There  are  no  'Historic  Doubts'  about 
Mr.  Reed's  worst  apparent  enemy,  Benedict  Arnold. 

I  am  wrong  in  speaking  of  Arnold,  as  Mr.  Reed's 
last  accuser,  for,  on  this  point,  Mr.  George  Bancroft,  at 
the  end  of  more  than  half  a  century,  has  taken  up  the 
thread  of  calumny — He  finds  it  in  the  dark  archives 
of  Hesse  Cassel. 

Mr.  Bancroft  ostentatiously  adduces,  as  proof  of  Mr. 
Reed's  infidelity,  a  mutilated  extract  from  what,  he  des 
cribes,  as  a  'Diary'  of  Count  Donop,  the  Hessian  com 
mander  of  the  advanced  posts  in  New  Jersey  in  Decem 
ber,  1776.  He  prints  it,  in  the  original,  in  a  note  to  page 
229  of  his  Ninth  Volume.  He  gives  no  translation  (as 
I  shall)  possibly  because  he  was  conscious  that,  in  plain 

or  the  President  of  Congress  is  to  me  indifferent."  At  page  53  he 
speaks  of  "  the  adlive  enterprising  Arnold,  and  the  Frenchified  Wash 
ington."  My  impression  is  that  the  pamphlet  was  written  by  some 
fugitive  of  the  Charles  Lee  school,  or,. which  is  probable,  though  prin 
ted  abroad,  written  in  Philadelphia,  where  the  chief  disciples  lived. 


88 

English,  it  amounted  to  nothing  at  all.  There  is  always 
an  ominous  mystery  in  a  foreign  language  which  Mr. 
Bancroft  does  not  hesitate  to  avail  himself  of. 

Before  I  notice  this  subject  in  detail,  let  me  allude  to 
the  view  taken  of  such  'historical'  evidence,  by  one 
Mr.  Bancroft  will  hardly  venture  to  discredit,  and  whom, 
rather  ostentatiously,  in  his  Preface  he  describes  as  his 
"friend"  the  late  Jared  Sparks.  I  have  some  doubts  as 
to  the  extent  of  this  friendship,  but  let  that  pass. 

In  1864,  Mr.  Sparks,  always  alive  to  such  matters, 
wrote  to  me: 

"  I  am  told  that  Mr.  Bancroft  has  procured  a  copy  of  Do- 
nop's  Journal.  I  should  put  no  confidence  in  Donop's  im 
pressions  or  inferences  unless  sustained  by  the  positive  testimony 
of  some  written  communication  from  General  Reed.  This  is 
not  likely  to  be  produced.  Donop  might  imagine  motives  which 
had  no  foundation  in  reality." 

I  will  now  show  that  even  Donop  did  not  imagine 
anything  of  the  kind. 

Mr.  Bancroft  thus  introduces  the  Diary,  which  is  to 
prove  so  much:  "Diary  kept  in  Donop's  command, 
written  by  himself  or  one  of  his  aids.  The  narration  is 
very  minute  and  exact,"  (page  217)  Again  he  says, 
(page  229)  "The  Donop  Diary,  which  is  remarkably 
precise,  full  and  accurate,  alludes  to  Colonel  Reed  as 
having  actually  obtained  a  protection.  This  statement 
though  made  incidentally  is  positive  and  unqualified." 
Then  follows  the  Hessian  extract. 


The  reader  will  be  surprised  to  learn,  and  to  see,  for  I 
shall  quote  the  very  words  in  English,  and  Mr.  Ban 
croft  will  not  impugn  the  accuracy  of  the  translation, 
that  Count  Donop,  admitting  the  Diary  to  be  his,  made 
no  such  statement;  but  in  fact  alludes  to  the  story  as 
gossip  at  his  Head-Quarters  which  he  did  not  'listen  to/ 
and  records  it  in  connection  with  other  matters  which,  we 
know,  are  utterly  without  foundation  in  truth. 

I  cite  every  word  in  the  Donop  Diary  relating,  directly 
or  indirectly,  to  Mr.  Reed.*  There  are  four  entries 
of  the  kind. 

On  the  20th  December,  the  Diary  says: 

"  December  20th. — Colonel  Von  Donop  to  day  received  by  a 
flag  of  truce  from  the  Rebel  Colonel  Reed,  Adjutant  General 
of  Washington,  a  letter  in  which  he,  by  authority  of  General 
Washington,  proposed  to  have  on  the  following  day  an  interview 
with  Colonel  Donop  on  account  of  Burlington,  as  this  place  in 
the  present  situation  was  much  exposed  to  both  sides.  It  was 
left  to  Colonel  Donop  to  determine  time  and  place  for  such  an 
interview.  He  answered  immediately  that  his  present  situation 
did  not  permit  him  to  leave  his  post.  At  the  same  time  the  let 
ter  of  Colonel  Reed  was  communicated,  in  which  he  proposed  an 
interview  about  Burlington,  and  the  answer  given  thereto ;  it  was 
not  to  be  presumed  that  the  Rebels  would  try  to  hold  Mount 
Holly  and  declare  Burlington  a  neutral  place,  because  from  the 
small  island  near  Bristol  they  could  bombard  Burlington  with  six 
pounders,  while  Mount  Holly  could  be  taken  any  time,  if  it  was 
our  pleasure  to  do  so." 

*  It  is  due  to  Mr.  Bancroft  to  say  that,  at  my  request  made  after  the 
appearance  of  the  9th  Volume,  he  sent  me  his  Donop  Note  Book. 
I  am  thus  enabled  to  give  further  extracts. 


9o 

"December  25th. — To  day  a  flag  of  truce  was  sent  by  Colonel 
Donop  to  Burlington  offering  to  Colonel  Reed  the  interview 
asked  for  as  to  that  town,  but  an  answer  from  Colonel  Cadwala- 
der  that  Reed  was  not  there  and  was  not  expected  to  return  before 
the  next  morning,  he  therefore  would  ask  him  to  appoint  another 
time  and  place  for  the  interview." 

All  this  is  the  record  of  what  actually  did  take  place, 
with  the  addition  that  it  was  done  "by  the  authority 
of  General  Washington."  I  now  come  to  the  intermediate 
entry  which  I  give,  verbatim,  and  in  English,  and  which 
Mr.  Bancroft  has  the  assurance  to  say  is  "precise," 
"full,"  "accurate,"  "positive"  and  "unqualified." 

"December  2 1 st. — Colonel  Donop  reported  to  General  Grant 
that,  notwithstanding  it  had  been  his  intention  to  attack  ('  pay  a 
visit  to ')  General  Putnam,  he  had  desisted  from  such  an  enter 
prise  after  meeting  Colonel  Blork  and  Lieutenant  Colonel  Ster 
ling  at  Mount  Holly,  and  had  received  trustworthy  information 
that  the  enemy  had  no  more  magazines  this  side  the  Delaware. 
It  would  not  therefore  be  worth  while  to  fatigue  the  troops  who 
were  already  worn  out  and  ragged.  Moreover,  it  would  be  im 
possible  for  the  troops  to  reach  Cooper's  Creek  otherwise  than 
by  a  circuitous  route  and  muddy  roads,  for  the  bridges  had  all  been 
destroyed.  As  his  line  was  already  extended  from  Bordentown 
to  Black  Horse,  fourteen  miles,  he  did  not  think  it  advisable  to 
extend  it  further,  and  the  less  so  because  RhalPs  Brigade  was 
almost  daily  alarmed  on  both  flanks." 

So  far  what  he  says  is  pretty  near  the  truth.  Now  for 
the  camp  gossip  which  Donop  was  unwilling  to  listen  to, 
and  I  beg  the  reader  to  observe  that  the  portion  in  italics, 
which  shows  that  it  was  discredited  hearsay,  is  carefully 
suppressed  by  Mr.  Bancroft. 


91 

u  The  reports  about  the  enemy  were  so  confused  that  be  would  not 
listen  any  more  to  them.  Nevertheless,  he  would  report  that  it  was 
reported  to  him  that  during  his  stay  at  Mount  Holly  on  the  iqtb  inst. 
IOOO  men,  via  H addon  fie  Id  and  JQQ  via  Moorestown,  had  been  march 
ing  against  Mount  Holly  for  the  purpose  of  attacking  the  two  bat 
talions  at  the  Black  Horse,  (that)  General  Mifflin  had  advanced  with 
one  corps  on  the  route  leading  to  Moorestown  to  the  bridge  three  miles 
from  Mount  Holly,  but  had  done  nothing  except  to  destroy  the  bridge 
entirely;  (that)  the  Colonel  Reed  having  received  a  protection,  had 
come  to  meet  General  Mifflin  and  had  declared  that  he  did  not  in 
tend  any  longer  to  serve ;  whereupon  Mifflin  is  said  to  have  treated 
him  very  harshly  and  even  to  have  called  him  a  damned  rascal." 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Mr.  Bancroft  shrank  from 
putting  this  trash  in  English,  for  it  is  very  certain,  and 
he  knows  it  well,  that  it  is  a  perfect  cluster  of  false  re 
ports.  On  the  1 9th,  2oth  and  2ist  December,  no  force 
had  advanced  or  was  advancing  via  Haddonfield  or  from 
any  other  direction.  Neither  Mifflin,  nor  Putnam,  nor 
any  one  had  crossed  the  river,  nor  ever  did  cross  the  river 
till  this  chapter  of  adventure  was  closed.  Count  Donop 
treated  these  stories  as  idle  tales  which,  while  he  or  his  aid 
noted,  he  did  not  listen  to  or  believe.  And  yet,  the 
American  'Historian  of  the  Revolution/  picks  out  the 
one  vague  slander  on  his  own  countryman,  and  prints 
it  as  truth,  suppressing  the  context  which  describes  it  as 
mere  rumour,  and  a  discredited  rumour  too  !  It  would 
be  a  departure  from  the  tone  which  should  characterise 
historical  discussion  were  I  to  describe  in  fitting  terms 
my  sense  of  this  literary  enormity.* 

*  There  were  other  rumours  floating  around  Donop's  quarters  and 
recorded  in  his  Diary,  which  Mr.  Bancroft  does  not  reproduce.     For 


Without  prolonging  this  unpleasant  criticism,  it 
should  be  noticed  that  General  Mifflin,  who  is  clumsily 
dragged  into  this  scandal  by  the  purveyors  of  false 
intelligence,  was  never  called  as  a  witness  in  1782-3,  that 
he  lived  long  after,  and  with  all  his  defects  of  charac- 


example,  in  his  Ninth  Volume  page  240,  he  says :  "  That  day  the  term 
of  enlistment  of  the  Eastern  regiments  came  to  an  end;  to  these  veterans, 
the  same  conditions  as  Pennsylvania  allowed  to  her  undisciplined  volun 
teers  were  offered  if  they  would  remain  six  weeks  longer ;  and,  with 
one  voice,  they  instantly  gave  their  word  to  do  so,  making  no  stipu 
lation  of  their  own."  The  Diary  says:  "December  24.  Likewise  also 
the  New  England  men,  or  so  called  Yankees,  have  declared  their  deter 
mination  on  January  I,  when  their  enlistment  is  at  end,  to  go  home. 
They  have  resolved  to  serve  no  more  outside  the  limits  of  their  own 
country."  Now,  which  tells  the  truth,  the  History  or  the  Diary  ?  Is  it 
only  when  a  Southern  man,  for  a  Pennsylvanian  was  so  regarded  then,  is 
to  be  maligned,  that  Mr.  Bancroft  quotes  Hessian  slander?  True  to  his 
origin,  he  is  reserved  as  to  New  England.  There  is  another  suppressed 
passage  in  the  '  Donop  Diary '  which  is  material  as  showing  further 
how  little  value  there  is  in  second-hand  Hessian  gossip.  On  the  28th 
of  December,  Donop  reports  to  General  Grant:  "He  has  cause  to 
regret  that  Colonel  Sterling  should  be  taken  away  from  him,  inasmuch 
as  he  shall  thus  lose  not  only  a  trusty  friend,  but  also  an  interpreter  of 
the  English  orders,  as  he  himself  is  not  sufficiently  versed  in  that 
language,  and  had  mainly  to  guess  at  the  contents  of  the  orders  he  re 
ceived  from  General  Grant,  andy  as  regards  the  news  which  from  time  to 
time  was  brought  in  by  the  inhabitants,  he  had  the  same  difficulty  " 

The  '  diary '  shows  Donop  to  have  been  an  adlive  and  vigilant  officer, 
who  thought  it  his  duty  to  jot  down  and  communicate  all  he  heard, 
credible  or  incredible.  Were  I  disposed  to  make  minute  criticisms,  I 
might  express  a  doubt  whether,  after  all,  the  Colonel  Reed  of  the  Diary 
of  the  2 1st  December,  was  my  ancestor,  for  according  to  Mr.  Bancroft 
there  were  other  Colonel  Reeds.  There  was  (page  246)  '  the  New 
England  Reed.' 


93 

ter,  and  Revolutionary  history  shows  they  were  many, 
he  never  condescended  to  fling  calumny  on  the  dead.* 

In  dismissing  this  subject,  I  beg  the  reader  to  ob 
serve  that  I  have  not  condescended  to  dwell  on  the 
astounding  fact,  that,  an  American  writer,  who,  on  one 
page,  records  the  brutality  of  these  alien  mercenaries, 
('plundering  ever  since  they  landed  in  the  country')  for 
so,  Mr.  Bancroft  describes  the  Germans,  officers  and  men; 
on  another,  should  ostentatiously  cite  a  Hessian  Colonel, 
or  a  Hessian  Colonel's  clerk,  as  a  witness  against  his 
own  countryman.  The  Hessian  himself,  as  we  have 
seen,  did  not  believe  the  calumny  which  has  been  f 


*  Mifflin  died  in  1800.  My  father,  son  of  General  Reed,  was  his 
friend,  and  the  executor  of  his  will.  On  the  trial  of  Josiah  Bright  before 
Judge  Washington  in  1809,  as  reported  by  Lloyd,  Mr.  Ingersoll,  the 
elder,  in  his  speech  for  the  defendant  said  :  "  In  the  Ninth  Volume  of 
the  Journal  of  Congress,  page  267, 1  observe  that  six  States  were  against 
the  claim  of  jurisdiction  on  the  part  of  the  Court  of  Appeal  of  Con* 
gress,  and  I  find  the  name  of  Jefferson  on  the  side  of  the  question,  for 
which  I  have  the  honour  to  contend;  I  add,  last  but  not  least,  the  names 
of  Reed  and  Bryan.  The  patriot  heart  will  joy  at  recollecting  them ; 
the  former  a  wonderfully  quick  penetrating  genius ;  the  latter  probably 
with  the  greatest  fund  of  information  of  any  man  in  the  United  States. 
I  trust  it  will  not  detract  from  the  weight  of  Mr.  Reed's  professional 
character  that  he  was  a  soldier  also  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  and 
that  the  splendid  military  manoeuvre  adopted  by  Washington  at  Tren 
ton,  by  which  the  fruits  of  a  former  viftory  were  secured,  and  a  second 
attained  at  Princeton,  was  of  his  suggestion.  This  information  I  re 
ceived  from  General  Mifflin  who  was  himself  a  member  of  the  coun 
cil  of  war."  My  professional  brethern  know  well  who  Mr.  Ingersoll 
was — one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Ancient  Bar — he  was  President  Reed's 
intimate  and  valued  friend.  Surely  his  testimony  is  at  least  as  trust 
worthy  as  Mr.  Bancroft's  Hessian  hearsay. 


94 

raked  up  from  the  refuse  of  his  camp.  I  hesitate,  in 
conclusion,  to  ask  the  question  and  yet  it  is  an  obvious 
one — Does  any  one  for  a  moment  imagine  that,  had  an 
officer  of  Mr.  Reed's  rank  (Washington's  Adjutant 
General)  taken  a  protection  or  asked  for  one,  or  done 
anything  of  the  kind,  it  would  have  remained  a  secret 
to  this  day  ?  A  protection  was  never  granted  without  an 
antecedent  oath,  which  was  always  matter  of  record. 

Having  thus,  with  what  success  it  is  not  forme  to  say, 
disposed  of  the  detailed  evidence  by  which  these  cal 
umnies  have  been  propped  up,  I  proudly  turn  to 
that,  which  after  all  is  most  conclusive — the  well  at 
tested  record  of  Mr.  Reed's  active  life,  on  which  has 
been  thrown  (a  severe  test  for  any  public  man)  the  strong, 
clear  light  of  his  domestic  correspondence;  the  letters  to 
and  from  his  wife,  and  brothers,  and  kinsmen,  and  per 
sonal  friends,  for,  in  the  biography  which  I  published,  I 
withheld  no  letter,  however  confidential  and  familiar,  from 
any  other  reason  than  to  avoid  prolixity,  or  a  fear  of  giv 
ing  pain  to  the  living  by  the  revival  of  transient  words 
or  thoughts  of  asperity.  That  record  is  the  best  proof 
of  my  ancestor's  public  and  private  virtue — his  patriot 
ism  in  the  highest  and  purest  sense. 

And  to  no  part  of  the  story  of  his  Revolutionary 
service,  do  I  more  confidently  refer  than  to  that  which 
tells  what  he,  and  those  near  and  dear  to  him,  did  and 
suffered  in  those  days  of  especial  disaster,  trial  and  vie- 


95 

tory,  when  it  now  seems,  if  posthumous  libellers  are  to 
be  credited,  detraction  was  busiest  with  his  fame;  I  mean 
the  interval  from  the  fall  of  Fort  Washington  to  the  re 
treat  of  the  enemy  to  New  Brunswick — -from  November, 
1776,  to  January,  1777.  With  a  brief  reference  to  this, 
made  more  interesting  by  one  or  two  letters  which 
have  come  into  my  possession  since  the  publica 
tion  of  my  book  in  1847,  I  conclude  this  effort  at 
vindication. 

After  the  fall  of  Fort  Washington  and  the  retreat 
of  the  American  army  through  Eastern  New  Jersey,  it 
seemed  probable,  in  view  of  the  advanced  season  and 
difficulties  of  transportation,  (and  within  my  recollection 
the  winter  roads  north  of  Trenton  and  Princeton  were 
practically  impassable)  that  the  Raritan  would  be  the  ex 
treme  limit  of  the  British  advance,  and  that  the  country 
between  it  and  the  Delaware  would  be  a  sort  of  neutral 
or  border  territory.  As  late  as  the  jrd  of  December, 
the  enemy  had  not  crossed  the  Raritan.  Mr.  Reed  had 
been  previously  despatched  to  the  fugitive  Legislature  of 
New  Jersey  to  show  the  necessity  of  reinforcements.  '  The 
critical  situation  of  our  affairs'  wrote  Washington  to  Gov 
ernor  Livingston,  on  the  2jd  of  November,  1776  cand 
the  movements  of  the  enemy  make  some  further  and  im 
mediate  exertions  absolutely  necessary.  In  order  that  you 
may  have  the  fullest  representation  and  form  a  perfect 
idea  of  what  is  now  necessary,  I  have  desired  Colonel 


96 

Reed  to  wait  on  you  and  must  refer  you  to  him  for 
particulars/  This  duty,  he  had  faithfully  performed,  and 
from  Burlington,  where  his  family  then  was  and  where 
Governor  Livingston  and  his  Assembly  had  been  in  ses 
sion,  Mr.  Reed  wrote  his  letter  to  Congress  of  the  28th 
of  November,  1776,  resigning  his  office  of  Adjutant  Gen 
era!.*  It  is  in  these  words: 

To  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  CONGRESS. 

Burlington,  New  'Jersey,  November  28,  1776. 
SIR, 

Near  three  months  ago,  I  laid  before  the  committee  of  the 
honourable  Congress,  appointed  to  form  and  regulate  the  new 
army,  my  intentions  of  relinquishing  the  office  of  Adjutant  Gen 
eral  at  the  close  of  the  campaign.  The  reasons  then  assigned, 
and  which  I  should  intrude  upon  your  time  to  repeat,  appeared  to 
me  so  weighty  that  I  conceived  it  a  duty  to  the  public  and  my 
self  to  represent  them  in  the  earliest  and  fullest  manner. 

As  the  season  will  not  admit  of  further  military  operations 
(unless  the  enemy  should  attempt  an  incursion  into  this  province 
to  harass  and  distress  us,  in  which  case  I  shall  most  cheerfully 
devote  myself  to  any  further  service)  I  beg  leave  to  enclose  the 
commission  with  the  highest  sense  and  warmest  acknowledgments 
of  the  favour  done  me. 

I  am  Sir,  your  most  obedient  and  very  humble  servant, 

Jos.  REED. 

This  letter,  though  dated  on  the  28th  probably  was  not 
sent  till  the  joth.  It  had  scarcely  gone  when  a  message 
was  received  from  the  Commander-in-Chief,  that  "invited 
by  the  broken  state  of  our  troops,  the  enemy  had  changed 

*  Governor  Livingston's  Letter,  zyth  Nov.  1776.     Force,  p.  870. 


97 

their  plan  and  were  rapidly  advancing  on  the  Delaware." 
On  the  first  of  December,  Washington  wrote  to  this 
effect  to  Governor  Livingston,  and  it  was  probably  by 
the  bearer  of  that  letter  the  message  was  sent  to  the 
Adjutant  General.  Mr.  Reed  did  not  hesitate,  but  in 
stantly  wrote — and  it  arrived  in  season — the  following  to 
Congress: 

To  THE  PRESIDENT  OF  CONGRESS. 

Burlington,  New  Jersey,  December  2,  1776. 
SIR, 

When  I  did  myself  the  honour  of  addressing  you  on  the  3Oth 
ult.,  I  had  not  the  least  idea  that  the  enemy  would  at  this  season 
attempt  a  progress  thro'  the  country.  It  seems  but  too  probable 
that  I  was  mistaken.  I  therefore  beg  leave  to  retract  the  resig 
nation  I  then  made,  and,  as  soon  as  I  have  disposed  of  Mrs.  Reed 
and  my  children,  will  attend  my  office  in  the  army  until  a  succes 
sor  is  appointed  or  operations  shall  cease  beyond  all  doubt. 

Flattering  myself  that  an  uninterrupted  attention  for  six  months 
and  my  conduct  during  that  time  will  incline  you  to  the  most 
favourable  construction  of  this  measure  which  proceeded  from 
our  unacquaintance  of  the  state  of  things, 

I  am  with  great  respect, 

Your  most  obedient  and  very  humble  servant. 

Jos.  REED.* 

*  Commenting  on  this,  Mr.  Bancroft  says  with  more  than  ordinary 
venom:  "(Reed)  shrunk  from  his  duty  and  seeking  definitively  to  quit 
the  army,  sent  back  his  commission  to  the  President  of  Congress.  But 
the  prospeft  of  unsparing  censure,  and  a  cold  rebuke  from  Washington, 
who  had  seen  proof  of  his  disingenuousness,  drove  him,  at  the  end  of  four 
days,  to  retraft  his  resignation,'*  p.  198.  From  all  the  evidence  accessi 
ble  to  me  and  the  statement  of  General  Reed  himself,  I  affirm  this  state 
ment  of  a  'rebuke*  from  Washington,  to  be  utterly  groundless.  If  Mr. 

7 


The  resignation  of  course  was  not  accepted.  The  in 
tentions  of  the  enemy  were  rapidly  developed,  and  on 
the  8th  of  December,  Mr.  Reed,  having  returned  to 
Headquarters,  wrote  to  the  President  of  Congress: 

SIR, 

We  set  out  this  morning  for  Princeton.  In  our  way  we  met 
a  messenger  with  the  enclosed.  The  General  ordered  me  back 
upon  some  necessary  business.  He  has  gone  forward  to  Prince 
ton  where  there  are  about  three  thousand  men  with  which  I  fear 
we  will  not  be  able  to  make  a  stand.  The  Jersey  militia  are  so  few 
that  no  dependence  can  be  placed  on  them.  The  militia  of  Penn 
sylvania,  except  from  the  city,  have  not  appeared  and  they  are 
very  confused,  the  time  not  having  admitted  of  any  arrangement. 
In  short,  sir,  from  all  circumstances  I  am  inclined  to  think  no  op 
position  will  be  given  'till  we  cross  the  Delaware.  Our  whole 
force  if  collected  will  not  exceed  six  thousand,  and  they  are  di 
minishing  every  moment  by  desertion. 

I  can  get  no  other  paper  than  this — you  will  please  to  excuse 
it  as  well  as  the  hurry  of  my  letter. 

I  am,  with  much  respect  and  regard,  your  most  obedient  hum 
ble  servant.  Jos.  REED. 

Bancroft  has  any  written  or  oral  testimony  as  to  it,  let  him  produce  it. 
If  he  has  not,  then  his  rhetorical  assumption  of  such  a  faft,  it  seems  to 
me,  comes  very  close  to  the  edge  of  wanton  misrepresentation.  The 
message  which  Mr.  Reed  describes  had  no  rebuke  in  it,  hot  or  cold. 
Washington's  letter  of  the  3Oth  does  not  allude  to  the  subject.  Slow 
to  believe  that  Mr.  Bancroft  would  invent  this  '  cold  rebuke,'  but,  at 
the  same  time,  confident  that  no  such  thing  existed,  I  wrote  an  enqui 
ry  to  my  friend,  the  venerable  Peter  Force  of  Washington,  whose  answer 
is  this :  '  In  reply  to  your  questions  in  regard  to  the  resignation  of  Gen 
eral  Reed,  in  1776, 1  might  have  answered  it  offhand,  but  I  preferred  to 
take  time  and  make  an  examination.  Beside  the  letters  you  referred  to, 
I  have  found  no  letter  or  memorandum  of  General  Washington,  or 
any  one  else,  on  the  subjeft  of  General  Reed's  resignation,  in  Decem 
ber,  1776.  Ms.  letter,  31  December,  1866. 


99 

Mr.  Reed  was  then  sent  to  Philadelphia  to  urge  ac 
tivity  in  reinforcements,  and  with  the  news  of  the  retreat 
of  the  Americans  to  the  right  bank  of  the  Delaware. 
From  that  time,  'till  the  I2th,  he  was  either  with  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  or  on  such  detached  special  duty 
as  their  confidential  relations  and  Mr.  Reed's  thorough 
acquaintance  with  the  neighbouring  region  imposed  on 
him.  It  must  have  been  during  one  of  these  expedi 
tions  that  he  wrote  to  Washington  the  following  hurried 
letter,  which  I  had  not  seen  in  1847,  but  which  I  find  in 
Mr.  Force's  Archives;  my  impression  is  that  it  was* 
written  at  either  Newtown  or  some  point  above  Treatou. 

REED  TO  WASHINGTON. 

December,  12,  1776. 
DEAR  SIR,  -» 

The  gentlemen  of  the  Light  Horse  who  went  into  the  Jersey* 
have  returned  safe.  They  proceeded  into  the  country  'till  they 
met  an  intelligent  person  dire&ly  from  Trenton,  who  informed 
them  that  General  Howe  was  then  with  the  main  body  of  his 
army ;  that  the  flying  army,  consisting  of  the  Light  Infantry  and 
grenadiers,  under  Lord  Cornwallis,  still  lay  at  Pennytown  and  there 
was  no  appearance  of  a  movement.  That  they  are  certainly 
waiting  for  boats  from  Brunswick ;  that  he  believed  they  would 
attempt  a  landing  in  more  places  than  one ;  that  their  artillery  park 
has  thirty  pieces  of  cannon — all  field  pieces.  They  are  collect 
ing  horses  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  Some  movement  was> 
intended  yesterday  morning  but  laid  aside ;  but  what  it  was  and 
why  they  did  not  proceed  he  does  not  know.  I  sent  off  a  per^ 
son  to  Trenton  yesterday  morning  with  directions  to  return  by 

Pennytown.     I  told  him  to  go  to and  get  what  intellU 

gence  he  could  from  him.     He  is  not  yet  returned.     I  expect 


100 

him  every  moment.     I  charged  him  to  let know  that, 

if  he  would  watch  their  motions  and  could  inform  us  of  the  time 
and  place  of  their  proposed  landing,  he  should  receive  a  large  re 
ward  for  which  I  would  be  answerable.  I  cannot  but  think  their 
landing  will  be  between  this  and  Trenton,  for  these  reasons : 

1st.  That  Lord  Cornwallis  with  that  part  of  the  army  which 
he  will  lead,  keeps  at  Pennytown,  within  four  miles  of  the  river. 

2nd.  They  will  by  that  means  avoid  the  ferry  at  Shamony, 
and  the  fords  which,  at  this  season  of  the  year,  must  be  disagree 
able  to  the  troops. 

< 

^rd.  They  will  derive  much  more  assistance  from  the  country 

which  is  but  too  favourable  to  them. 

4th.  They  know  our  principal  artillery  is  near  Trenjon  and 
the  passage  through  the  woods  to  Bristol  must  be  unfavourable 
to  them.  On  the  road  above  they  will  find  all  clear  and  the 
distance  nearly  the  same.  * 

The  river  is  not  and  I  believe  cannot  be  sufficiently  guarded. 
We  must  depend  upon  intelligence  of  their  motions ;  to  obtain 
which  no  expense  must  be  spared,  if"  it  were  possible  to  fix 
signals  answering  to  their  different  movements,  that  would  be 
most  speedy  and  effectual.  The  militia  are  crossing  over  in  par 
ties.  I  fear  they  do  not  mean  to  return.  I  do  not  know  by 
whose  orders,  but  if  their  Colonels  have  power  to  give  permis- 
sian,  in  a  little  time  there  will  be  none  left.  I  do  hot  like  the 
condition  of  things  at  and  above  Cory  ell's  Ferry ;  the  officers  are 
quite  new  and  seem  to  have  little  sense  of  the  necessity  of  vig 
ilance.  I  shall  wait  a  little  to  see  my  man  return,  and  then,  un 
less  your  Excellency  think  my  stay  here  of  service,  I  will  return 
to  Headquarters.  I  enclose  you  a  proclamation  which  I  got 
from  the  other  side.  I  suppose  it  is  one  of  the  same  kind  Gen 
eral  Dickerson  saw.  Mr.  Moylan  desires  me  to  mention  to  your 
Excellency  the  propriety  of  his  meeting  General  Lee  to  inform 


101 

him  of  the  state  of  things,  and  wishes  to  know  your  plan  by  the 
return  of  the  Light  Horse. 

I  am  in  haste,  most  respectfully,  Dear  Sir, 

Your  obedient,  humble,  servant, 

Jos.  REED. 

On  the  1 4th,  news  was  received  of  Lee's  capture,  and, 
some  time  in  that  week,  Mr.  Reed  was  sent  to  Bristol  to 
assist  and  counsel  with  General  Cadwalader,  whose 
command  consisted  mainly  of  Pennsylvania,  indeed 
Philadelphia  militia — his  and  Mr.  Reed's  townsmen 
and  neighbours.  This  is  a  simple  and  natural  explana 
tion  of  the  arrangement.  The  distance  from  Head- 
Quarters  was  very  short,  nine  miles  when  at  Newtown, 
and  ten  if  opposite  Trenton;  if  Doctor  Rush  is  to 
be  credited,  the  Adjutant  General  being  in  constant  con 
nection  with  the  Commander-in-Chief.  That  General 
Cadwalader,  writing  in  1783,  hinted  a  sinister  object  in 
Mr.  Reed's  joining  him,  is  very  true,  but  it  is  one  of  the 
worst  specimens  of  unproved  insinuation  with  which  his 
pamphlet  abounds.  Mr.  Reed  did  assist  him  actively  and 
faithfully,  and  I  have  little  doubt,  from  the  evidence  ac 
cessible  to  me,  that  the  high  spirited  soldier  of  1776,  for 
such  was  General  John  Cadwalader,  never  harboured  the 
thought  or  suspicion,  or  to  his  nearest  friend  whispered 
the  insinuation  which  fell  from  the  tongue  of  the  angered 
partisan  of  1778  and  '83.  While  at  Bristol,  on  the  22d 
of  December,  Mr.  Reed  wrote  to  Washington  what  I 
may  describe  as  the  cPomroy'  letter,  (supra,  page  43,)  to 


IO2 

which  and  to  what  I  have  said  of  it,  I  specially  refer  the 
reader.  It's.  first  effect  was  that  Reed  was  sent  for  to 
Head-Quarters  and  the  outlines  of  the  plan  of  attack  on 
Trenton  communicated  to  him,  and  at  the  same  time,  it 
is  said,  a  letter  was  written  to  the  same  purport  to  Cadwal- 
ader.  Then  followed,  with  General  Cadwalader's  full 
concurrence,  the  night  visit  of  Mr.  Reed  and  Colonel 
Cox  to  Griffin  at  Mount  Holly  —  and  then,  probably 
on  their  return  to  camp  at  Bristol,  came  Washington's 
remarkable  letter  of  anxious  inquiry  and  affectionate  con 
fidence,  addressed  to  "Joseph  Reed,  Esq.  —  or  in  his  ab 
sence,  John  Cadwalader,  Esq.,  only"  —  in  its  fading  but 
still  clear  characters,  now  before  me,  and  which,  tho'  often 
printed  before,  I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  re 
produce.  It  was  to  these  two  friends  only  —  friends  of 
his,  and  as  he  thought,  of  each  other  —  that  he  told  the 
perilous  secret  of  his  necessities  and  his  intentions, 
and  of  the  very  hour,  almost  the  minute,  he  meant 
to  execute  his  plan  of  adventure. 


Camp  above  Trenton  Falls,  2^d  December,!"]^. 
DEAR  SIR, 

-The  bearer  is  sent  down  to  know  whether  your  plan  was  at 
tempted  last  night,  and  if  not,  to  inform  you  that  Christmas  day, 
at  night,  one  hour  before  day,  is  the  time  fixed  upon  for  our 
attempt  on  Trenton.  For  heaven's  sake  keep  this  to  yourself,  as 
the  discovery  of  it  may  prove  fatal  to  us.  Our  numbers,  sorry 
I  am  to  say,  being  less  than  I  had  any  conception  of;  but  neces 
sity,  dire  necessity,  will  —  nay  must  justify  any  attempt.  Prepare 


and  in  concert  with  Griffin  attack  as  many  of  their  posts  as  you 
possibly  can,  with  a  prospect  of  success.  The  more  we  attack 
at  the  same  instant,  the  more  confusion  we  shall  spread,  and  the 
greater  good  will  result  from  it. 

If  I  had  not  been  fully  convinced  before  of  the  enemy's  designs, 
I  have  now  ample  testimony  of  their  intentions  to  attack  Phila 
delphia  as  soon  as  the  ice  will  afford  the  means  of  conveyance. 

As  the  Colonels  of  the  Continental  regiments  might  kick  up 
some  dust  about  command,  unless  Cadwalader  is  considered  by 
them  in  the  light  of  a  Brigadier,  which  I  wish  him  to  be,  I  de 
sired  General  Gates,  who  is  unwell  and  applied  for  leave  to  go  to 
Philadelphia,  to  endeavour,  if  his  health  would  permit  him,  to  call 
and  stay  two  or  three  days  at  Bristol  in  his  way. 

I  shall  not  be  particular.  We  could  not  ripen  matters  for  our 
attack  before  the  time  mentioned  in  the  first  part  of  this  letter. 
So  much  out  of  sorts,  and  so  much  in  want  of-  everything  are 
the  troops  under  Sullivan,  &c.  Let  me  know  by  a  careful  ex 
press  the  plan  you  are  to  pursue.  The  letter  herewith  sent, 
forward  on  to  Philadelphia.  I  could  wish  it  to  be  in,  in  time  for 
the  Southern  post's  departure,  which  will  be,  I  believe,  by  eleven 
o'clock  to  morrow. 

I  am,  dear  sir, 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

GEO.  WASHINGTON. 

P.  S.  I  have  ordered  our  men  to  be  provided  with  three  days 
provisions,  ready  cook'd  ;  with  which  and  their  blankets,  they  are 
to  march;  for  if  we  are"  successful,  which  Heaven  grant,  and 
other  circumstances  favour,  we  may  push  on.  I  shall  direct 
every  ferry  and  ford  to  be  well  guarded,  and  not  a  soul  suffered 
to  pass  without  an  officer  going  down  with  the  permit.  Do 
the  same  with  you. 

To  JOSEPH  REED,  Eso^, 

or,  in  his  absence,  to 

JOHN  CADWALADER,  Eso^,  only,  at  Bristol.* 

*  I  am  unable  to  estimate  the  logic  by  which  it  is  assumed  that  this 
letter  was  so  addressed  because  Washington  thought  Cadwalader  might  be 


104 

When  this  letter  came,  it  was  known  at  Bristol  that 
Griffin  had  retired  and  that  there  was  no  hope  of  con 
cert  from  him.  It  was  then  determined  that,  while  Cad- 
walader  matured  a  movement  in  aid  of  Washington  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Burlington,  Reed  should  go  to 
Philadelphia  and  persuade  Putnam,  who  was  in  com 
mand,  to  cross  at  Cooper's  Ferry.  This  was  on  the 
night  of  the  24th,  and  from  Philadelphia,  Mr.  Reed 
wrote  to  Cadwalader  the  next  morning: 


"  General  Putnam  has  determined  to  cross  the  river  with  as 
many  men  as  he  can  collect,  which  he  says  will  be  about  five 
hundred ;  he  is  now  mustering  and  endeavouring  to  get  Pro&or's 
company  of  artillery  to  go  with  them.  I  wait  to  know  what 
success  he  meets  with  and  the  progress  he  makes — but  at  all 
events  I  shall  be  with  you  this  afternoon. "* 


absent.  It  would  then  have  been  to  'John  Cadwalader,  Esq.,  or  in  his 
absence  to  Joseph  Reed,  Esq.,'  and  in  the  text  'Cadwalader'  would  not 
have  been  spoken  of  in  the  third  person.  It  is  not  at  all  material.  I 
am  tempted  to  add  a  brief  extraft  from  Washington's  earnest  letter  to 
Congress,  the  next  day,  to  show  what  troops  he  relied  on,  in  this  the  hour 
of  agony,  if  not  despair.  "By  the  departure  of  these  regiments  (Lee's 
and  Gates's  corps)  I  shall  be  left  with  fiye  from  Virginia,  Smallwood's 
from  Maryland,  a  small  part  of  Rawlins'  and  Hand's  from  Pennsylvania, 
part  of  Ward's  from  Connecticut,  and  the  German  battalion,  amounting 
in  the  whole  at  this  time  to  from  1400  to  1500  effective  men.  This 
handful  and  such  militia  as  may  choose  to  join  me,  will  then  compose 
our  army."  I  find  n0  allusion  to  the  'Mariners  from  Marblehead.' 
Mr.  Bancroft  quotes  the  language  of  Washington's  letter  of  the  23d, 
but  takes  pains  to  avoid  saying  it  was  addressed  to  Reed. 

*  The  rest  of  this  letter  has  never  been  printed.     The  extradl  I  find 
in  the  Cadwalader  pamphlet. 


105 

This  was  but  doubtful  encouragement — Five  hundred 
men,  with  or  without  artillery,  was  all  that  could  be  expec 
ted,  and  their  movements  were  uncertain. — Well  might 
Mr.  Reed  say  what  he  did,  years  afterwards  in  his  pam 
phlet  (page  1 8,)  and  well  might  he  send,  for  it  was  his 
duty  to  tell  the  exact  truth,  'discouraging  accounts'  to 
Washington,  though,  from  the  date  of  the  letter  from 
McKonkey's  Ferry  (2£th,  6  P.  M .,)  it  is  probable  the 
news  there  referred  to,  related  to  Griffin's  withdrawal,  and 
not  to  Putnam's  delay.  "At  all  events,"  wrote  Mr.  Reed, 
"I  shall  be  with  you  this  afternoon,"  and  he  kept  his 
word,  and  was  at  Bristol  and  the  Ferry  taking  part  in 
the  ice-blocked  passage  of  that  winter  night,  the  incidents 
of  which  and  of  the  adventurous  advance  to  Burlington, 
have  already  been  described.  Whilst  the  troops  below 
were  ineffectually  struggling  with  the  elements,  Washing 
ton  had  crossed  above  and  by  noon  of  the  next  day 
(26th)  had  consummated  his  victory  at  Trenton.  The 
sound  of  the  firing  was  heard,  but  the  news  of  the 
precise  result  did  not  reach  Bristol  whither  Mr.  Reed 
had  returned,  'till  some  time  on  the  2yth,  or  at  night 
of  the  26th.  The  rest  of  the  narrative  of  those  days 
has  been  elsewhere  given,  and  as  the  object  of  what  I 
now  write  is  merely  defensive,  I  shall  not  repeat  it,  the 
end  being  the  pursuit  of  the  enemy  almost  to  the  banks 
of  the  Hudson;  in  every  step  and  movement  of  which 
Mr.  Reed  shared  with  Cadwalader,  under  the  eye  of 

Washington. 

H 


TO6 

Accident  has  thrown  in  my  way  the  following  letters, 
which  have  never  been  published,  and  which  are  not 
without  interest. 

They  need  but  a  word  of  explanatory  comment. 

It  will  be  recollected  that,  in  Mr.  Reed's  pamphlet 
of  1782,  in  reference  to  his  visit  to  Philadelphia,  at  mid 
night  of  the  24tli  of  December,  this  passage  occurs: 

"  I  lay  down  for  a  few  hours,  and  when  the  morning  came,  a 
number  of  gentlemen,  among  whom  I  particularly  recollect  Col 
onel  Moylan,  Mr.  James  Mease  and  Mr.  R.  Peters,  came,  and 
anxiously  enquired  into  our  situation  and  prospers.  They  can 
tell  whether  despondency  or  animation,  hope  or  apprehension, 
most  prevailed,  and  whether  the  language  I  held  was  not  the  very 
reverse  of  despair ;  the  former  may  remember,  that  when  urged 
to  stay  and  partake  of  a  social  entertainment  provided  for  the 
day,  I  declared  my  resolution  that  no  consideration  should  prevent 
my  return  to  the  army  immediately;  and  that  in  a  private  con 
versation  I  pressed  him  to  do  the  same,  lest  he  should  lose  a 
glorious  opportunity  to  serve  his  country  and  distinguish  himself. 
I  was  not  at  liberty  to  be  perfectly  explicit,  but  the  hint  was 
sufficient  to  a  brave  officer." 

This  'brave  officer' — Stephen  Moylan  of  Pennsylva 
nia,  was  one  of  Mr.  Reed's  life-long  friends.  The  re 
collections  of  this  friendship,  and  the  allusion  in  the 
passage  I  have  just  cited,  tempt  me  to  print  the  follow 
ing  very  characteristic  letter. 

COLONEL  MOYLAN  TO  ROBERT  MORRIS. 

Headquarters,  Morristown,  'January  7,  1777. 
DEAR  SIR, 

I  thank  you,  my  good  friend,  for  your  favour  of  the  first.  What 
a  change  in  our  affairs,  since  the  date  of  that  letter.  Are  you 


icy 

not  all  too  happy  ?  By  Heavens,  it  was  the  best  piece  of  gen 
eralship  I  ever  read  or  heard  of.  An  enemy,  within  musket  shot 
of  us,  determined,  and  only  waiting  for  daylight,  to  make  a  vig- 
ourous  attack.  We  stole  a  march,  got  to  Princeton,  defeated, 
and  almost  totally  ruined,  three  of  the  best  regiments  in  the 
British  service ;  made  all  their  schemes  upon  Philadelphia,  for 
this  season,  abortive ;  put  them  into  such  a  consternation,  that 
if  we  only  had  five  hundred  fresh  men,  there  is  very  little  doubt 
but  we  should  have  destroyed  all  their  stores  and  baggage,  at 
Brunswick,  of  course,  oblige  them  to  leave  the  Jerseys,  (this 
they  must  do)  and  probably  have  taken  poor  Naso.*  What 
would  our  worthy  General  have  given  for  500  of  the  fellows 
who  were  eating  beef  and  pudding  at  Philadelphia  on  that  day  ? 
But  let  us  not  repine — it  was  glorious.  The  consequence  must 
be  great.  America  will — by  G — d — it  must  be  free ! 

I  never  mentioned  my  desire  to  the  General  of  engaging  in 
the  cavalry.  Your  letter,  I  believe,  gave  him  the  first  intima 
tion.  I  put  it  into  his  hands  to  show  him  your  gift  of  divination. 
Pray,  how  could  you  suppose,  that  our  next  blow  must  be  at 
Princeton,  but  I  recollect  you  did  not  then  know  we  were  at 
tacked  at  Trenton.  How  your  heart  went  pitipat,  when  that 
news  reached  you,  and  what  an  agreeable  feeling  you  must  all 
have  had  when  you  heard  of  their  facing  right  about.  But  that 
feeling  is  very  short  of  those  which  we  all  enjoyed  when  pur 
suing  the  flying  enemy.  It  is  unutterable — inexpressible.  I 
know  I  never  felt  so  much  like  one  of  Homer's  deities  before. 
We  trod  on  air — it  was  a  glorious  day.  Pray  send  us  back  those 
runaways  that  left  us  these  some  days  past.  We  are  really  weak, 
strengthen  our  hands,  and  we  will  not  leave  an  enemy  out  of  gun 
shot  from  their  ships.  I  will  not  tire  you  further  than  telling 
you  what  I  have  often  done,  that 

I  am  sincerely,  Sir,  yours, 
To  Robert  Morris,  Esq.  STEPHEN  MOYLAN. 

*  Charles  Lee. 


io8 

Mr.  Bancroft  of  course  has  a  fling  at  Colonel  Moy- 
lan.  The  reader  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  the 
number  and  virulence  of  his  minute  defamations.  It  is  a 
sort  of  eruptive  disease  with  him.  He  assails,  besides  Mr. 
Reed ^AWHW,  Greene  pp.  40,  174,  184-5,  8>  9>  I93"45  5> 
426-8,  Dickinson  pp.  46,  199,  Mercer  p.  113,  Smalhvood 
p.  123,  Lambert ,Cadwalader  p.  190,  St.  Clair  p.  246, 
Mifflin  pp.  39,  459,  Armstrong  p.  106,  Sullivan  p.  397. 
Moylan  and  Wayne  p.  230,  456,  every  one,  except  Greene 
from  Rhode  Island  and  Sullivan  from  New  Hampshire, 
born  south  of  the  Hudson.  Wayne's  offence  to  Mr. 
Bancroft  may  be  his  letter  to  Gates  of  the  first  of 
December,  1776,  printed  in  Mr.  Force's  Archives. 
"Whilst  I  am  writing,  an  express  brings  advice  of  Fort 
Washington  being  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  and  the 
whole  garrison  consisting  of  2000  men  killed  or  prison 
ers.  My  heart  bleeds  for  poor  Washington.  Had  he 
but  Southern  troops,  he  would  not  be  necessitated  so  often 
to  fly  before  an  enemy  who,  I  fear,  has  lately  had  but  too 
much  reason  to  hold  us  cheap."  Bancroft,  speaking  of 
General  Ewing,  says :  "  He  did  not  even  make  an  attempt 
to  cross  at  Trenton."  Washington,  writing  to  Congress, 
says:  "The  quantity  of  ice  was  so  great  that,  though 
General  Ewing  did  every  thing  in  his  power  to  effect  it, 
he  could  not  get  over."* 

A  fortnight  later,  Mr.  Reed,  then  probably  acting  as 

*  Works  of  Washington,  Vol.  4,  page  247. 


IO9 

Adjutant  General  till  his  successor  was  named — and  at  all 
events  at  Headquarters,  wrote  the  following  semi-official 
letter  to  Philadelphia,  which  has  this  interest,  that  it  shows 
how  kindly,  how  generously,  and  I  am  quite  willing  to 
say,  how  justly  he  thought  and  wrote  of  his  fellow-sol 
diers,  of  some  of  those  who  became  so  soon  his  bitter 
enemies. 

To  MR.  THOMAS  BRADFORD,  PRINTER. 

"SIR, 

I  am  dire&ed  by  his  excellency,  General  Washington,  to  for* 
ward  to  you  the  enclosed,  with  a  request  that  they  may  be  print 
ed  in  the  public  papers,  with  a  note  that  all  printers  of  newspapers 
will  re-print  them  in  their  several  papers — and  that  you  would 
have  1000  copies  of  each  struck  off  and  forwarded  to  him  with 
all  possible  expedition.  The  evils  they  are  calculated  to  remedy 
are  of  so  alarming  and  increasing  a  nature  that  no  time  is  to  be 
lost. 

I  shall  be  much  obliged  to  you  to  remind  your  father  that  there 
are  two  new  blankets  among  his  baggage  belonging  to  me.  I 
shall  be  obliged  to  him  to  secure  them  for  me  if  they  are  to  be 
found. 

We  have  nothing  new  in  this  quarter,  our  parties  every  day 
harrass  the  enemy ;  yesterday  one  of  them  attacked  600  of  the 
enemy  near  Woodbridge,  after  a  warm  firing  our  troops  retreated, 
the  enemy's  number  being  three  times  superior.  The  stormy 
weather  will,  I  fear,  give  the  remainder  of  the  Philadelphia 
militia  a  very  bad  march  home.  The  last  moved  off  yesterday, 
having  greatly  distinguished  themselves  by  their  gallant  behaviour 
in  the  field,  as  well  as  orderly  and  soldierlike  conduct  in  camp. 
All  the  militia  are  following  their  example  in  annoying  the  enemy 
every  opportunity,  so  that  we  hope  in  a  little  time  they  will  prove 
a  noble  support  to  their  country.  General  Cadwalader  has  con 
ducted  his  command  with  great  honour  to  himself  and  the  Pro 
vince,  all  the  field  officers  supported  their  characters,  their  ex- 


I  IO 

ample  was  followed  by  the  inferior  officers  and  men,  so  that  they 
have  i  eturned  with  the  thanks  and  praises  of  every  general  officer 
in  the  army. 

The  Light  Horse,  tho'  few  in  number,  have  rendered  as  essen 
tial  service,  as  in  my  opinion,  the  same  number  of  men  ever  per 
formed  to  their  country  in  the  same  time.  They. thought  no 
duty  beneath  them,  and  went  through  it  with  a  generous  disre 
gard  of  fatigue  and  danger,  which  entitles  them  to  the  kindest 
notice  and  attentioii  of  their  fellow  citizens.  We  hope  that 
some  of  the  artillery  officers  who  have  engaged  in  this  temporary 
service  may  be  induced  to  enter  into  the  Continental  army  as  the 
specimen  they  have  given  shows  that  they  may  be  exceedingly 
useful  to  their  country  in  a  line  of  service  which  every  day  shows 
to  be  more  and  more  important. 

It  might  appear  invidious  to  mention  names  where  all  have  be 
haved  well— but  Colonel  Morgan,  Colonel  Nixon,  Colonel  Cox, 
your  old  gentleman,*  and  Major  Knox,  and  Cowperthwaite,  cer 
tainly  ought  not  to  pass  unnoticed  for  their  behaviour  at  Princeton. 
Major  Meredith  would,  on  many  accounts,  be  a  great  acquisition 
to  the  army  if  he  could  be  prevailed  on  to  engage  in  the  service, 
he  has  a  military  turn  and,  tho'  he  was  diffident  of  himself,  it 
appeared  when  we  came  to  action  that  there  was  not  the  least 
foundation  for  it,  but  quite  the  reverse. 

I  am  Sir,  with  esteem, 

Your  most  obedient,  humble  servant, 

Jos.  REED. 

Headquarters,  Morris town ,  'January  24,  1777- 

The  next  month,  after  more  than  a  year's  dispersal, 
Mr.  Reed  and  his  family  found  themselves  for  a  time 
at  home  in  Philadelphia.  There  are  now  before 
me  two  manuscripts,  for  which  I  am  indebted  to  a 
kinswoman  (alas!  now  dead)  in  a  distant  land,  letters 

*  The  William  Bradford  who  made  the  affidavit  of  1 782.  Ante.  p.  28. 


Ill 

from  the  husband  and  father,  the  wife  and  mother  of  that 
re-united  family,  which  came  into  my  possession  more 
than  seventy  years  after  those  who  wrote  them  sank  into 
their  graves,  and  which  I  now  reprint  as  homely  testimo 
nials  of  fidelity  and  heroism.  They  are  both  written  to 
Mrs.  Reed's  brother,  Mr.  De  Berdt  of  London;  for  in 
those  times,  unlike  ours,  the  refined  cruelty  of  prohibit 
ing  correspondence  of  relatives  on  different  sides  of  Civil 
War  was  not  resorted  to.* 

MR.  REED  TO  MR.  DE  BERDT. 

Philadelphia,  February  2O,  1777. 
DEAR  DENNIS, 

It  is  not  one  of  the  least  misfortunes  of  these  unhappy  times 
in  which  our  lot  is  cast,  that  the  intercourse  of  the  nearest  rela 
tions  and  dearest  friends  is  almost  wholly  interrupted.  Except 
your  letter  by  Lord  Howe,  and  your  packet  by  Israel  Morris, 
we  have  heard  nothing  from  you  for  almost  twelve  months.  How 
ever  it  is  no  small  consolation  to  us  to  learn  that  your  prospects 
of  business  are  exceeding  good  while  ours  are  changed  from  the 
most  prosperous  to  the  most  adverse.  The  war  being  brought 
to  our  own  door,  and  carried  on  with  the  most  inhuman  ravage, 
in  which  age  and  sex  have  indiscriminately  suffered,  has  banished 
every  idea  of  law,  so  that  the  profession  for  which  it  has  been 
my  earliest  study  to  qualify  myself  is  become,  entirely  useless. 
The  family,  as  well  for  safety  as  economy,  have  been  obliged  to 
leave  Philadelphia,  but,  unluckily  directing  its  course  into  the 
Jerseys,  which,  soon  after,  the  British  and  Hessian  Troops  pen 
etrated  ;  your  mother — sister —  five  children,  were  again  obliged 
to  fly,  and  are  now  secluded  from  all  society  but  among  them 
selves,  surroirhded  with  woods  and  inhabitants  of  the  common 

*  I   recovered  these  letters  through  the  kind  offices  of  the  grand 
daughter  of  Mr.  de  Berdt,  Mrs.  Esther  Reed  Merriman — Mrs.  Merri 
man  died  near  London,  in  1862. 


112 

class  of  country  people.  I  thank  God  they  have  experienced 
little  distress  but  what  arises  from  fatigue  or  apprehension.  A 
party  of  the  Hessian  Troops  came  into  the  town  of  Burlington 
the  next  day  after  they  left,  and  afterwards  were  within  three 
miles  of  their  retreat.  To  have  been  plundered  of  everything 
they  could  carry  away,  and  the  destruction  of  what  they  could 
not,  was  the  least  in  such  case  to  be  expected — but  happily  the 
American  arms  at  this  crisis  proved  successful;  the  enemy  was 
obliged  to  evacuate  this  country,  and  peace  and  quiet  have  been 
restored,  but  how  long  it  will  last  none  can  tell  but  He  who 
knows  all  things.  Your  letter  by  Lord  Howe  arrived  before 
there  had  been  any  effusion  of  blood ;  it  was  wrote  with  a  spirit 
and  sentiment  that  would  do  you  honour  among  the  sensible  and 
dispassionate.  I  was  then  with  the  army,  and  after  showing  it 
to  the  General,  I  transmitted  it  to  the  Congress,  but  no  notice 
was  taken  of  it.  I  then  waited  impatiently  for  a  public  disclosure 
of  some  terms  or  propositions  from  Lord  Howe  and  his  brother. 
If  they  had  been  such  as  would  give  my  country  any  security 
against  the  unlimited  powers  of  your  Parliament  to  deprive  us 
of  our  property  at  any  time  and  in  what  proportions  they  pleased, 
I  should  have  applied  myself  most  earnestly  to  have  brought 
about  an  accommodation,  and  if  those  in  power  had  wantonly  or 
wickedly  rejected  the  proposition,  I  should  have  retired  from 
the  army  to  a  private  and  obscure  station.  But  no  such  propo 
sition  being  ever  made,  tho'  general  professions  of  kindness  and 
justice  were  profusely  given,  and  being  well  satisfied  in  my  own 
mind,  from  a  conversation  I  had  with  the  Adjutant  General 
of  the  British  Army,  whom  I  conducted  to  and  from  an  inter 
view  with  General  Washington,  that  the  commissioners  had  no 
powers  to  give  liberty,  peace  and  safety  to  this  country,  I  no 
longer  hesitated  about  my  duty,  but  continued  with  the  army  the 
whole  campaign,  and  have  been  in  every  action  except  two  which 
has  happened  during  the  whole  summer.  I  thank  God  I  have  en 
joyed  uninterrupted  health,  and  met  with  no  accident.  But  the 
office  I  hold  not  being  agreeable  to  me,  and  my  doing  what  I 
deemed  my  duty,  having  made  me  many  enemies  among  the  in- 


"3 

tractable  and  undisciplined  part  of  our  army,  I  resolved  to  decline 
it  when  the  campaign  was  over.  In  what  line  I  shall  hereafter 
move  is  very  uncertain,  but  the  dispute  is  now  advanced  to  such 
a  heighth,  and  the  inhumanity  with  which  it  has  been  conducted 
by  the  British  Generals  has  created  such  an  inveteracy  between 
the  two  countries  as  no  (illegible)  can  efface.  The  British  Nation 
must  receive  its  impression  from  its  officers  and  friends.  They 
have  injured  us  so  highly  by  their  ravages,  cruelty  and  insult  that 
it  is  impossible  they  can  ever  forgive  us,  for  there  is  no  hatred 
so  deadly  as  that  of  him  who  has  injured  another,  and  is  con 
scious  he  can  neither  palliate  or  redress  it.  The  scenes  of  cruelty 
and  desolation,  which  my  own  eyes  have  beheld,  are  beyond  des 
cription.  The  havoc  which  avarice,  lust  and  wantonness  have 
made  in  this  fine  growing  country,  will  be  remembered  for  ages 
— if  its  progress  should  cease  to  morrow.  The  illiberal  abuse 
of  the  King  and  his  Ministers  I  detest — a  false  ambition  and  a 
mistaken  idea  of  the  true  interest  of  the  Nation  has  led  them 
astray,  but  History  shews  us  that  this  is  no  novelty.  I  fear 
national  pride  must  also  be  taken  into  the  account — that  pride 
which  being  transplanted  to  this  country  shews  our  descent,  and 
perhaps  is  not  unjustly  termed  obstinacy.  In  this  state  of  things 
where  can  the  man  of  honour  and  lover  of  his  country  set  his 
foot  ?  On  the  one  hand  an  unlimited  submission  which  scarcely 
leaves  a  shadow  of  liberty — on  the  other  a  dreadful  opposition 
subversive  of  every  species  of  social  and  commercial  happiness, 
and  of  which  no  end  is  yet  to  be  seen — those  who  prefer  tem 
porary  ease  and  safety  to  essential  liberty  would  find  no  difficulty 
in  the  choice ;  but  how  can  a  man  of  honour,  and  who  thinks 
himself  bound  to  transmit  to  his  posterity  the  blessings  of  free 
dom  unimpaired  make  the  ignominious  sacrifice  ? 
Adieu  my  Dear  Dennis. 

Most  affecVy  Yours. 

MRS.  REED  TO  MR    DE  BERDT. 

"An  opportunity  of  writing  to  you,  my  dear  Dennis,  is  now 
become  so  rare,  that  I  could  not  think  of  letting  this  slip  without 


n4 

sitting  down  to  tell  you  our  distresses.  How  shall  I  describe  our 
situation  for  some  months  past ;  your  heart,  I  am  sure,  has  already 
felt  much  for  us,  but  you  could  not  form  any  adequate  idea  of  the 
scenes  we  have  pass'd.  Thank  God  our  apprehensions  and  fears 
have  not  been  altogether  realized,  but  these  were  sufficient ;  but 
one  day's  escape  from  an  army  of  foreigners,  and,  for  several 
weeks,  within  a  few  hours  march  of  them,  and  since  they  have 
been  driven  back,  we  have  understood  they  had  planned  a  visit  to 
our  retreat.  Nothing  could  be  more  distressing  but  the  dreadful 
reality ;  but  a  kind  and  overruling  Providence  protected  us  from 
the  dangers  we  feared,  and  our  retreat  has  been  safe  and  com 
fortable  j  anything  more  we  hardly  dared  to  wish.  Since  the 
happy  change  in  our  affairs  we  look  back  without  regret  on  our 
past  distresses,  and  trust  to  the  same  Almighty  Power  which  so 
evidently  appeared  then  in  our  favour  to  deliver  us  from  the  hand 
of  oppression  which  lately  threatened  to  strike  us  to  the  dust. 
You  will  be  surprised,  I  dare  say,  at  the  rapid  and  uninterupted 
progress  the  enemy  made  thro'  this  province,  but  when  I  tell  you 
the  horrid  blunder  our  Rulers  made,  it  will  easily  account  for  it ; 
they  enlisted  their  soldiers  for  a  short  time,  some  four,  some  six 
months  j  the  enemy,  as  might  readily  be  supposed,  were  informed 
of  this,  and  at  the  time  our  army  was  disbanding  and  did  not  con 
sist  of  more  than  3000  men,  they  marched  thro'  and  took  pos 
session  of  the  Province — what  has  happened  since,  and  the  hap 
py  change  in  which  our  arms  have  proved  successful,  you  will 
hear  from  many  quarters.  Our  prospects  are  brighter,  our  hopes 
are  raised,  our  utmost  efforts  are  exerting,  and  we  devoutly  trust 
in  the  favour  and  assistance  of  the  Great  Arbiter  and  Ruler  of 
Nations,  who  alone  can  give  success  to  our  arms  and  peace  to 
our  land. 

Our  domestic  affairs  have  another  change  by  the  addition 
of  a  daughter,  which  happened  just  at  the  time  my  dear  Mr. 
Reed  was  exposed  to  all  the  dangers  and  fatigues  of  a  campaign. 
A  kind  Providence  has  preserved  both  our  lives  and  we  are  now 
enjoying  a  few  weeks  together  in  peace  and  safety,  but  it  is  not 
without  many  anxious  fears  for  the  future.  I  cannot  forget  to 


tell  you  that  Mr.  Reed  has  had  some  very  narrow  escapes 
of  his  life,  once  by  one  of  our  own  men  who  was  running  away 
and  he  ordered  to  return  to  his  duty,  the  fellow  presented  his 
musket  within  half  a  yard  of  his  head,  but  it  happily  missed  fire^ 
and  another  time  in  an  engagement  near  N.  Y.  his  horse  was 
shot  under  him.  But  however  great  and  complicated  our  diffi 
culties  and  distresses  have  been,  we  have  not  been  so  fully  taken 
up  by  them,  but  we  have  truly  and  affectionately  shared  in  your 
happier  prospects,  and  are  anxious  to  hear  that  your  hopes  and 
expeditions  both  in  love  and  business  are  answered.  Adieu, 
adieu,  my  dear  Dennis,  I  know  not  when  I  shall  have  another 
opportunity  of  writing  to  you ;  you  must  embrace  every  one  of 
writing  to  us — I  need  not  tell  you  that  our  Dear  Mama  remem 
bers  you  with  the  utmost  tenderness,  or  that  I  am, 

With  the  sincerest  affection, 

Ever  Yours, 

E.  REED. 

In  less  than  a  year  after  this,  Mr.  Reed's  Administra 
tion  as  President  of  the  Executive  Council  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  began.  It  continued  by  unanimous  re-election 
for  three  years,  and  to  its  record  of  untiring  and  suc 
cessful  public  service,  I  again  appeal. 

One  word  more  on  two  minor  matters  which  the  pur 
veyors  of  slanderous  gossip,  including  Mr.  Bancroft, 
have  made  subject  of  incidental  misrepresentation, — the 
allegations  that  Mr.  Reed,  when  Adjutant  General,  stimu 
lated  local  prejudices  amongst  the  Continental  troops, 
especially  at  the  expense  of  the  New  England  levies; 
and  that  there  was  an  actual  interruption  of  friendly  re 
lations  between  General  Washington  and  him,  in  con 
sequence  of  a  discovery  said  to  have  been  made  as  to  the 


n6 

Lee  letter."  This  ficlion  is,  I  believe,  due  to  the 
imagination  of  Mr.  John  C.  Hamilton  who,  conscious 
that  between  his  ancestor  and  Washington  there  had 
been  a  personal  difference,  in  no  sense  creditable  to  the 
younger  man,  conjured  up  this  notion  of  a  quarrel  with 
Mr.  Reed. 

The  first  imputation  is  to  be  found  in  a  note  to 
the  Cadwalader  pamphlet,  and  in  a  letter  from  Joseph 
Trumbull,  an  aid  of  Charles  Lee,  which  has  been 
recently  and  ostentatiously  printed  in  the  "resurrec 
tion"  of  1 8 63.*  Both  of  these  I  refer  to,  with  the  pas 
sing  comment  that  John  Adams,  who  is  quoted,  was 
Doctor  Rush's  intimate  friend,  and  that  they  were  mem 
bers  of  Congress  when  Mr.  Reed  was  named  as  a  Briga 
dier.  The  gossip  is  a  curious  confirmation  of  a  remark 
somewhere  made  by  Mr.  Jay,  in  writing  to  Washington 
about  Congress,  that  "there  is  as  much  intrigue  as  at 
the  Vatican,  and  as  much  secrecy  as  in  a  boarding 
School." 

The  two  charges,  such  as  they  are,  shall  be  noticed  in 
order. 

I.  As  to  the  New  England  troops.     It  is  better  on 

*  This  Joseph  Trumbull  seems  to  have  been  possessed  with  the 
spirit  of  sectionalism.  "It  is  said"  he  wrote  on  18  November,  1776, 
"that  Mount  Washington  has  surrendered.  We  don't  yet  learn  particu 
lars.  I  am  glad  a  Southern  officer  commanded.  The  story  is  not  told 
to  his  advantage  here;  DC  it  as  it  may,  we  should  not  have  heard  the 
last  of  it  from  Reed  and  some  others  of  his  stamp,  if  a  New  England 
man  had  commanded."  The  two  'Southern*  officers  in  command  were 
Magaw  and  Lambert  Cadwalader,  both  Pennsylvanians. 


this  as  on  other  questions,  to  allow  Mr.  Reed  to  make 
his  own  defence.  In  a  letter  addressed  to  Congress  on 
the  subject  of  military  promotion,  in  the  spring  or  sum 
mer  following  the  events  I  have  endeavoured  to  describe, 
he  used  this  language: 

"While  the  camp  was  stationary  and  danger  at  a  dis 
tance,  some  crimes  could  not  exist  and  others  could  not  be 
prevented  or  punished;  but  when  the  approach  of  the 
enemy  brought  in  the  militia  without  any  tincture  of  dis 
cipline;  when  the  hurry  of  retreat  or  action  made  it  diffi 
cult  to  go  thro*  the  forms  of  trial,  all  restraints  seemed  to 
be  broken  down.  A  spirit  of  desertion,  cowardice,  plunder 
and  shrinking  from  duty  when  attended  with  fatigue  or 
danger,  prevailed  but  too  generally  thro'  the  whole  army. 
And  why  should  I  disguise  any  part  of  the  truth  by  con 
cealing  that  it  was  more  conspicuous  in  one  part  of  the 
army  than  another  ?  The  Orderly  Books  and  concurrent 
testimony  of  the  impartial  and  sensible  officers,  even 
among  themselves,  will  prove  it.  In  this  state  of  things 
when  military  justice  was  in  a  great  degree  suspended, 
and  the  discipline,  the  safety  of  the  army,  depended 
upon  the  private  virtue  and  exertions  of  the  officers, 
rather  than  the  coercion  of  Government,  it  cannot 
be  thought  surprising  that,  in  very  populous  States, 
many  should  have  got  into  offices  and  commissions,  who 
would  prove  unworthy  of  them  in  an  hour  of  such  se 
vere  trial,  and  endanger  the  service  and  distress  this  Com 
mand.  Answerable  as  I  was  for  the  safety  of  this  army, 


so  far  as  it  depended  upon  its  guards — called  by  the  duty 
of  my  office  and  orders,  ten  times  repeated,  to  exert 
myself  in  preventing  and  punishing  the  great  military 
offences  I  have  noted  before — I  did  speak  freely,  tho' 
generally  in  private,  to  such  officers  as  failed  in  their  duty 
by  absence  from  camp  on  pretence  of  sickness,  and 
brought  to  trial  without  favour,  every  officer  or  soldier 
who  was  charged  with  cowardice,  fraud,  plunder  of  the 
publick  stores,  or  the  poor  inhabitants.  There  was  not 
a  person  in  this  wide  Continent  more  anxious  than  my 
self  to  extinguish  all  distinctions  except  those  which 
merit  and  service  create;  but  it  is  impossible — it  is  too 
deeply  rooted  ever  to  be  eradicated.  I  thought  it  not 
amiss  to  avail  myself  of  what  could  not  be  remedied,  and 
endeavoured  to  draw  emulation  from  that  source.  The 
ignorant,  the  timid  and  the  lazy,  convinced  that  I  am  not 
vulnerable  should  they  attempt  to  enter  into  particulars, 
took  occasion  to  charge  me  with  creating  disunion  and  di 
vision.  Had  my  conversation  embittered  the  mind  of  the 
General,  or  private  correspondence  those  of  any  members 
of  Congress — had  it  been  the  subject  of  open  invidious 
comparison  to  officers  of  other  Provinces,  or  even  of  pri 
vate  letters  to  my  friends  at  home,  there  might  be  some 
colour  for  the  charge,  but  my  soul  is  above  such  prac 
tices;  what  I  said  was  to  the  faulty  or  their  friends, 
openly  and  above  all  disguise,  proceeding  from  an  honest 
tho'  perhaps  too  zealous  a  hope  of  amendment  on  points, 


which  if  not  amended,  must,  sooner  or  later,  end  in  the 
destruction  of  the  Army,  and  finally  of  the  cause  itself."* 
It  is  surely  not  necessary  at  this  time  of  day  to  justify, 
by  evidence,  language  so  clear  and  explicit.  Washing 
ton's  letters  are  full  of  it;  candid  New  England 
historians  admit  the  existence  of  a  levelling  and 
unmilitary  spirit,  and,  if  specific  proof  of  the  disor 
ganization,  to  use  a  mild  word,  of  some  of  the  New 
England  troops  be  needed,  I  turn  to  the  testimony 
of  Colonel  Joseph  Trumbull  himself,  the  witness  pro 
duced  against  Mr.  Reed,  who  makes  to  his  father,  the 
Governor,  this  revelation: 

HONOURED  SIR, 

Enclosed  I  send  you  returns  of  some  of  the  regiments  of  Con 
necticut  Militia,  under  command  of  Major-General  Wooster,  such 
as  I  can  get  j  though  I  have  called  and  called,  again  and  again,  for 
•them,  I  believe  there  is  but  one  of  them  which  is  really  true,  that 
is  Major  Brinsmade's,  who  seems  to  be  the  honestest  man.  The 
facl:  is  they  cannot  make  their  weekly  and  provision  returns  agree ; 
for  this  reason,  they  have  made  a  number  of  brevet  officers. 
They  doubt  whether  these  officers  will  be  allowed  extra  rations ; 
to  avoid  this,  they  return  so  many  more  men  as  to  cover  the  ex 
tra  rations  for  these  officers.  You'll  see  by  adverting  to  these 
returns  that  some  companies  have  more  officers  than  privates' at 
best ;  but  not  content  with  that,  and  instead  of  sending  home 

*  "It  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  have  an  idea  of  the  complete 
equality  which  exists  between  the  officers  and  men  who  compose  the 
greater  part  of  our  troops.  You  may  form  some  notion  of  it  when  I 
tell  you  that  yesterday  morning  a  Captain  of  Horse,  who  attends  the 
General,  was  seen  shaving  one  of  his  own  men  near  the  house."  Let- 
ter  to  Mrs.  Reed,  Oftoher  n,  1776. 


I2O 

the  officers  who  have  very  few  men,  and  turning  those  men  over 
into  other  companies,  they  add  brevet  officers,  not  only  to  pick  the 
pockets  of  the  public  here,  but  also,  by  and  by,  these  brevet  officers 
are  to  be  dismissed  from  the  militia  rolls  at  home,  and  in  a  few 
times  more  being  called  forth,  there  will  be  no  militia  left  in  the 
State.* 

On  this  head,  I  have  no  more  to  say. 

II.  The  alienation  from  Washington.  This  is  more 
plainly  stated  by  Mr.  John  C.  Hamilton  than  by  any 
other  writer,  tho'  Mr.  Bancroft  takes  up  the  strain. 
Mr.  Hamilton  is  the  only  one  who  enters  into  imagin 
ary  particulars — gives  a  reason  for  his  assumed  facts  and 
fixes  an  exact  date — the  month  of  November,  1780;  as 
to  which,  I  merely  observe  that  even  a  moderately 
anxious  inquirer  after  historical  truth  will  need,  and  has 
a  right  to  require,  better  evidence  to  establish  either 
facts,  dates,  or  theories,  than  Mr.  Hamilton's  aver 
ments.  No  one  knows  this  better  than  Mr.  Bancroft. 
If,  among  the  Hamilton  papers  or  elsewhere,  there 
is  a  written  word  confirmatory  of  this  alienation  and 
its  imputed  cause,  the  Lee  correspondence,  it  can 
easily  be  produced.  Till  it  is,  I  have  a  right  to  put 
it  in  the  category  of  unscrupulous  defamations.  It 
is  certainly  true  that  after  November  1780,  the  pri 
vate  correspondence  of  Washington  and  Reed,  in  a 
measure,  ceased,  but  any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble, 

*  4th  December,  1776.  Forces'  Archives,  5th  Series,  Vol.  page  3, 
1073. 


121 

as  I  have  had  occasion  to  do,  to  examine  the  Archives 
of  Pennsylvania  while  Mr.  Reed  was  President,  will  see 
how  constant  and  unreserved  the  public  correspondence 
was,  and  I  think  it  is  clear  from  an  inspection  of  Mr. 
Sparks'  work,  that  towards  the  close  of  the  War,  Wash 
ington's  private  correspondence  with  his  friends  every 
where  very  much  diminished.  When,  in  August,  1780, 
President  Reed  marched  to  Trenton  with  the  Pennsyl 
vania  Militia,  his  correspondence  with  his  wife,  printed  in 
my  Memoir,  indicated  a  transient  uneasiness  as  to  some 
slight  alienation  on  the  part  of  General  Washington.* 
With  this  exception,  I  do  not  find  the  least  trace  of  the 
difference  which  the  busy  and  malevolent  men  of  this 
day  have  insinuated,  and  am  aware  of  no  cause  for  any 
thing  of  the  kind.  General  Sullivan,  between  whom  and 
Mr.  Reed,  there  appears  not  to  have  been  a  friendly  feel 
ing,  had  written  accusatory  letters  to  Washington  in  1779, 
but  they  evidently  made  no  impression,  for  there  were  in 
them  allegations  as  to  the  Conway  cabal,  which  Washing 
ton  knew  to  be  groundless.f  Mr.  Reed  had  nothing  what 
ever  to  do,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  the  Conway  cabal. 

*  Life  of  Reed,  Vol.  II.,  page  248.  In  1781,  writing  to  Greene, 
President  Reed  said:  "Washington  complains  of  us  all."  (Id.  pp.  358.) 
Still  later  in  the  same  year  he  writes :  "  The  incessant  mirepresenta- 
tions  and  calumnies  with  respeft  to  myself,  and  some  unfriendly  charac 
ters  about  him  have  raised  prejudices,  of  what  nature  I  cannot  tell,  but 
this  does  not  hinder  my  revering  his  character  and  doing  justice  to  his 
merits  and  services.  May  he  long  and  happily  enjoy  the  laurels  he  has 
acquired."  (Id.  page  373.) 

f  Sparks1  "  Letters  to   Washington"  Vol.   2,  page  366,  280. 

16 


122 

His  enemies,  such  as  Doctor  Rush,  were  deeply  implica 
ted  in  it.  Late  in  November,  1780,  at  least  after  the  .Z2d, 
Mrs.  Washington  was  the  guest  of  Mr.  Reed.*  In 
October,  1781,  Mr.  Reed  wrote  to  felicitate  Washington 
on  his  victory  over  Cornwallis,  and  received  the  follow 
ing  reply: 

Mount  Vernon,  15  November,  1781. 
DEAR  SIR, 

I  have  the  honour  to  thank  you  most  sincerely  for  your  con 
gratulations  conveyed  in  your  favour  of  the  2yth  ult.  That  our 
success  against  the  enemy  in  the  State  of  Virginia  has  been  so 
happily  effected,  and  with  so  little  loss — and  that  it  promises 
such  -favourable  consequences,  (if  properly  improved,)  to  the  wel 
fare  and  independence  of  the  United  States — is  matter  of  very 
pleasing  reflection.  I  beg  you  to  be  assured  that  I  am,  with  per 
fect  regard  and  esteem 

Dear  Sir,  your  most  obedient 

Humble  servant, 
To  HON.  JOSEPH  REED,  Eso^  GEO.  WASHINGTON. f 

*    Voyage  de  Cbastellux,  Vol.  I.,  161. 

•(•  In  writing  a  formal  letter  to  the  Executive  Council,  Washington 
said :  "  I  most  sincerely  thank  you  for  your  kind  wishes  for  my  personal 
prosperity,  and  beg  you  to  be  assured  that  a  full  establishment  of  peace, 
liberty  and  independence,  to  this  and  the  other  United  States  of  Ameri 
ca,  is  my  most  ardent  wish."  In  March,  1782,  the  following  item  is 
to  be  found  in  the  Philadelphia  newspapers:  "Last  Friday  morning, 
His  Excellency  General  Washington  left  this  City,  attended  by  the 
Honourable  General  Potter,  Vice  President  of  the  State,  General  Reed, 
the  late  President,  a  number  of  gentlemen,  officers  of  the  Army,  and 
also  Captain  Morris'  Troop  of  City  Light  Horse."  Freeman's  Journal, 
27  March,  1782.  When  Washington  resigned  his  commission  at  Ana- 
polis,  he  said :  "While  I  repeat  my  obligations  to  the  Army  in  general, 
I  should  do  injustice  to  my  own  feelings  not  to  acknowledge  in  this 
place  the  peculiar  services  and  distinguished  merits  of  the  gentlemen 


123 

During  the  spring  and  summer  of  the  next  year,  I  am 
aware  of  no  correspondence,  Washington  being,  from  time 
to  time,  in  Philadelphia.  In  September,  1782,  there 
were  two  letters  with  reference  to  this  Cadwalader  con 
troversy,  which  may  here  with  propriety  be  inserted, 
with  no  other  comment  than  that  they  show,  on  one 
side,  the  consciousness  of  innocence  whicji  frankly  and 
confidently  appeals  for  justice,  and  on  the  other,  the 
friendly  readiness  with  which  the  appeal  was  met.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  in  General  Cadwalader's  reply 
to  Mr.  Reed,  not  a  word  of  comment  is  made  on 
Washington's  letter. 

REED  TO  WASHINGTON. 

September  II,  1782. 
DEAR  SIR, 

After  the  services,  sufferings,  and  anxieties  of  the  winter  of 
1776,  I  little  expe&ed  that  period  would  be  selected  as  the  season 
of  my  greatest  reproach,  and  that  I  should  stand  publicly  charged 
with  not  only  meditating,  but  a&ually  expressing  intentions  of  de* 
serting  to  the  enemy.  Yet,  sir,  so  it  is  ;  not  mere  newspaper  abuse, 
or  transient  report,  but  a&ually  countenanced  and  supported  by  a 
person  of  some  rank  and  appearance  in  the  world.  Having  never 
asked  or  received  any  public  favour  from  Congress,  conscious  of 
my  own  integrity,  and  deeply  wounded  with  the  cruel  suggestion, 
I  must  appeal  to  your  justice  and  candour,  and  most  earnestly  re 
quest  you  would,  by  the  bearer,  who  goes  express  for  the  purpose, 
favour  me  with  a  few  lines  expressive  of  your  sense  of  my  con- 

who  have  been  attached  to  my  person  during  the  War.  It  was  im 
possible  the  choice  of  confidential  officers  to  compose  my  family  should 
have  been  more  fortunate." 


I24 

in  the  fall  and  winter  of  the  year  1776;  and  particularly 
whether  you  ever  heard,  or  at  any  time  entertained  doubts  of  my 
fidelity,  and  whether  under  the  communications  made  to  me 
of  our  military  operations,  an  apprehended  treachery  on  my  part 
would  not  have  made  me  a  very*  dangerous  character. 

I  would  farther  beg  you  would  permit  my  making  use  of  sun 
dry  letters  I  have  received  from  you,  at  a  time  when  you  appeared 
to  repose  an  unreserved  confidence  in  me,  and  of  which,  I  can 
appeal  to  that  Qod  who  knows  the  secrets  of  all  hearts,  I  was 
not  (in  point  of  integrity)  unworthy. 

As  I  never  availed  myself  of  your  Excellency's  friendship  to 
seek  for  honour  or  profit,  or  even  for  the  reparation  of  losses 
actually  sustained  in  the  service,  I  have  the  fullest  confidence 
that  you  will  most  cheerfully  comply  with  this,  to  me,  most  in 
teresting  request;  and  should  you  descend  to  particulars,  you 
will  be  pleased  to  point  them  to  the  period  which  intervened 
between  our  retreat  from  Hackensack,  and  the  revival  of  our 
affairs  at  Princeton. 

My  memory  suggests  to  me  a  letter  I  wrote  your  Excel 
lency  from  Bristol,  containing  reasons  for  an  attack  on  the  enemy; 
if  that  letter  can  be  obtained,  I  am  persuaded  it  contains  senti 
ments  of  a  very  different  nature  from  those  of  which  I  complain, 
and  would  be  particularly  useful.* 

I  shall  make  no  other  use  of  any  communication  I  now  have, 
or  you  may  favour  me  with,  than  to  vindicate  my  own  character 
against  the  malignant  imputation  of  intending  a  desertion  to  the 
enemy.  And  am, 

With  the  greatest  respect, 

Your  Excellency's  humble  servant, 

JOSEPH  REED. 


*  This  was  the   "Pomroy"  letter,  the   history   of  which  I   have 
already  given — supra  page  43, 


WASHINGTON  TO  REED. 

VerplancVs  Point,   15   September,  1782. 


DEAR  SIR, 


The  appeal  contained  in  your  letter  of  the  nth  inst.  is  equally 
unexpected  and  surprising. 

Not  knowing  the  particular  charges  that  are  alleged  against 
you,  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  make  a  specific  reply,  I  can  there 
fore  only  say  in  general  terms  that  the  employments  you  sustained 
in  the  year  1776,  and  in  that  period  of  the  year  when  we  exper 
ienced  our  greatest  distresses  are  a  proof  that  you  was  not  suspect 
ed  by  me  of  infidelity,  or  want  of  integrity;  for  had  the  least 
suspicion  of  the  kind  reached  my  mind,  either  from  observation 
or  report,  I  should  most  assuredly  have  marked  you  out  as  a  fit 
object  of  resentment. 

While  on  our  retreat  through  Jersey,  I  remember  your  being 
sent  from  Newark,  to  the  Assembly  of  New  Jersey,  then  sitting, 
to  rouse  and  animate  them  to  spirited  measures  for  our  support ; 
and  at  the  same  time  General  Mifflin  was  sent  to  Pennsylvania 
for  the  same  purpose.  This  employment  was  certainly  a  mark 
of  my  confidence  in  you  at  that  time. 

Your  conduct,  so  far  as  it  came  to  my  immediate  notice, 
during  the  short  period  we  lay  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Delaware, 
appeared  solicitous  for  the  public  good.  And  your  conduct  at 
Princeton  evidenced  a  spirit  and  zeal,  which  to  me  appeared 
laudable  and  becoming  a  man  well  affected  to  the  cause  we  were 
engaged  in. 

It  is  rather  a  disagreeable  circumstance,  to  have  private  and 
confidential  letters,  hastily  written  as  all  mine  of  that  class 
are,  upon  a  supposition  that  they  would  remain  between  the  par 
ties  only,  produced  as  evidence  in  a  matter  of  public  discussion, 
but  conscious  that  my  public  and  private  sentiments,  are  at  all 
times  alike,  I  shall  not  withhold  these  letters  should  vou  think 
them  absolutely  necessary  to  your  justification. 


126 

If  I  have  in  my  possession  any  such  letter  as  you  particularly  al 
lude  to,  it  is  not  at  present  with  me — being  in  the  field  perfectly 
light,  I  have  divested  myself  of  all  papers,  public  and  private ;  but 
such  of  late  date  as  I  thought  I  might  have  occasion,  in  my  present 
situation,  to  refer  to ;  the  others  remain  at  a  considerable  distance 
from  me. 

I  am,  Dear  Sir, 

Your  obedient  and  most  humble  servant, 

G.  WASHINGTON. 

The  Hon.  Joseph  Reed,  Esq. 


My  work  is  now  done.  It  has  gone  far  beyond  the 
limits,  which,  when  I  began  to  write,  I  thought  would 
circumscribe  it;  but  it  has  grown  on  my  hands,  and 
hoping  to  make  an  end  of  these  inveterate  slanders, 
I  have  thought  it  best  to  deal  with  them  in  detail, 
and  to  collate  every  item  of  historical  evidence,  how 
ever  minute,  that  I  know  to  exist.  I  do  not  hope  to 
have  it  said  that  these  questions  have  been  discussed  in 
a  judicial  spirit,  for  I  am  conscious  of  strong  feelings 
which  may  have  affected  my  judgment.  But  I  am  sure 
that  nothing  has  been  intentionally  overstated  or  mis 
represented,  and  no  evidence  held  back  which  was  ap 
parently  adverse.  If  I  have  been  betrayed  into  asperity 
of  language,  let  it  be  borne  in  mind  how  dark  are  the 
accusations  made  against  my  ancestor,  that  crimes  are 
imputed  to  him  of  the  deepest  hue  of  guilt,  described  in 
the  strongest  language,  and  what  stealthy  and  systematic 
industry  has  been  shown  by  the  living  purveyors  of  cal- 


127 

umny,  one  and  all,  having  for  their  aim  to  injure  me  and 
mine.  If,  in  anything  I  have  been  compelled  to  say, 
pain  has  been  given  to  the  living,  I  mean  the  innocent 
living,  while  it  is  a  matter  of  great  regret,  let  it  be  re 
membered,  the  re-awakening  of  these  controversies  is  no 
work  of  mine.  For  more  than  twenty  years  have  I  sub 
mitted  in  silence  to  periodical  revivals  of  this  poison 
ous  rubbish  of  the  past,  and  I  now  reluctantly  present 
to  the  public  this  vindication  of  the  dead,  in  justice  to 
my  family,  and  to  the  Truth  of  History. 


128 


POSTSCRIPT. 

I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  notice  Mr.  Ban 
croft's  minute  criticisms  on  my  'Biography  of  Reed/ 
Looking  over  the  twenty  years  which  have  rolled  by 
since  the  Book  was  published,  I  am  glad  that  ill  nature 
can  detect  so  few  mistakes.  I  am  tempted  however  to 
reproduce  the  opinions  of  five  eminent  American  pub 
lic  men,  of  widely  different  characters  and  positions, 
which  at  the  time  gave  me — then  a  young  author — great 
pleasure. 

"For  a  grandson,"  wrote  Albert  Gallatin,  "you  are 
very  reserved  and  temperate  in  your  estimation  of  your 
ancestor's  great  name.  I  can  assure  you,  when  I 
entered  public  life  in  1790,  his  memory  was  most 
enthusiastically  revered  by  the  party  to  which  I  was 
attached,  and  I  heard  various  true  anecdotes  and 
several  suggestions  highly  honourable  to  him.  Amongst 
the  last  was  the  general  belief  that  the  decisive  march 
from  Trenton  to  Princeton  was  suggested  by  him.  But 
the  great  value  of  your  Biography  consists  in  the  num 
ber  of  authentic  facts  and  documents,  now  for  the  first 
time  published,  and  which  throw  much  light  on  the  gen 
eral  history  of  the  Revolution." 


129 

FROM  CHANCELLOR  KENT. 

Summit,  Essex  Co.,  N.  J..  'July  9,  1847. 


DEAR   SIR. 


I  hope  you  will  not  take  amiss  this  intrusive  note  from  a 
stranger.  My  domicil  is  the  City  of  New  York,  but  I  am  here 
in  a  country  cottage  with  my  family  for  the  summer,  and  I  have 
just  finished  the  earnest  and  interesting  perusal  of  your  "Life 
and  Correspondence  of  Joseph  Reed,"  your  paternal  grandfather, 
and  I  feel  gratified  for  the  pleasure  and  instruction  you  have 
afforded  me  by  your  two  volumes.  It  is  a  most  interesting  and 
admirable  history  of  one  of  the  ablest  and  purest  of  patriots  of  the 
Revolution.  The  portraits  of  President  Reed,  of  Washington, 
of  Greene,  are  admirable,  and  they  were  three  of  the  great  a&ors* 
in  the  great  scenes  of  that  day.  I  want  language  to  express  my 
sense  of  the;r  illustrious  merits.  Your  volumes  are  written  with 
the  greatest  dignity  and  truth.  I  purchased  them  as  soon  as  they 
were  out  and  though  I  took  with  me  Prescott's  Peru,  I  have 
passed  it  by  as  infinitely  less  interesting  than  your  Memoir.  I 
am  a  great  admirer  of  contemporary  history  of  these  past  events 
with  the  perfecl:  authenticity  that  original  correspondence  affords. 
I  am  old  enough  to  recollect  vividly  the  historical  events  from 
the  battle  of  Lexington  to  the  present  day,  and  listened  when 
young  to  all  the  news,  and  rumours,  and  handbills,  and  news 
papers  that  were  shown  and  read  through  the  early  campaigns 
of  the  American  War,  and  I  have  the  recollection  and  feelings 
of  a  contemporary.  I  was  driven  from  New  Haven  College  on 
the  5th  of  July,  1779,  and  fled  to  my  father's  house  at  Fairfield. 
The  next  morning,  I  saw  it  in  flames  caused  by  British  incen 
diaries.  I  fled  to  the  vicinity  of  Norwalk  where  my  maternal 
grandfather's  house  was  burned,  and  even  the  humble  school 
house  in  which  I  was  taught  my  earliest  teachings.  In  1781,  I 
left  College  and  was  placed  in  the  office  of  Mr.  Benson,  the 
Attorney  General  of  the  State,  and  there  I  saw  from  time  to 
time,  and  listened  to  the  great  men  who  visited  there — such  as 
George  Clinton,  Washington,  Hamilton,  Lawrence,  Schuyler, 


Dana,  Duane,  &c.,  and  imbibed  the  utmost  veneration  for  such 
characters.  It  is  no  wonder  I  take  such  a  deep  interest  in  such 
works  as  yours — and  so  I  did  in  'Gibbs'  History  of  Federalism, 
during  the  life  of  his  grandfather,  Oliver  Wolcott,  and  in  Judge 
Burnet's  History  of  the  N.  W.  Territory.  I  consider  yours 
and  such  histories  as  monuments  of  the  great  men  of  the  Revo 
lutionary  Age. 

Please  excuse  this  perhaps  impertinent  narrative,  and  accept 
my  gratitude  for  the  honour  you  have  done  your  country,  and 
the  pleasure  you  have  afforded  by  the  discharge  of  filial  duty  to 
one  of  the  best  and  most  faultless  men  that  took  part  in  the 
Revolution. 

Believe  me  to  be,  with 

the  highest  respect,  Y'rs, 

JAMES  KENT. 


FROM  JOHN  SERGEANT  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

"  I  have  finished  the  first  volume  of  the  '  Life  and  Correspon 
dence,'  and  will  be  glad  to  have  the  second  as  soon  as  may  be. 
I  have  found  it  very  interesting,  and  the  interest  to  increase  as  I 
have  gone  on.  It  appears  to  me  that  the  work  will  be  likely  to 
take  a  strong  hold,  and  I  hope  will  repay  you  for  your  labour. 
It  is  a  curious  history  of  the  details,  in  their  natural  proportions, 
of  an  eventful  period,  and  of  the  actual  workings  of  men  in 
times  of  difficulty  and  danger,  without  exaggeration  or  colouring. 
The  chief  figure  cannot  be  said  to  be  brought  out.  It  brings 
out  itself  without  any  effort  in  the  narrative  for  effecl:.  I  am 
myself  surprised  at  its  stature  and  power  as  exhibited  in  a  simple, 
unaffected  statement  of  facts,  all  authenticated  by  unquestioned 
evidence." 


Mr.  Calhoun,  wrote  to  me  from  Fort  Hill,  in  South 
Carolina,  on  the  6th  of  November,  1847: 


UI  have  devoted  my  first  leisure  hours  to  the  perusal  of  your 
work,  and  have  just  finished  it.  I  am  greatly  indebted  for  the 
information  and  pleasure  it  afforded.  It  gives  fuller  and  more 
accurate  information  of  some  of  the  most  important  occurrences 
of  the  Revolution,  and  of  the  character  of  many  of  the  princi 
pal  actors  in  that  great  drama.  High  as  my  opinion  was 
of  your  distinguished  ancestor,  the  perusal  of  this  work  has 
raised  him  still  higher  in  my  estimation.  His  letters  are  his  best 
eulogist,  and  will  ever  place  him  in  the  first  rank  of  the  great 
men  who  achieved  our  Independence,  for  talent,  integrity,  devo 
ted  patriotism,  and  important  services  rendered  to  the  cause  and 
country." 


Lastly,  from  Mr.  Sparks,  to  whose  kind  offices  I  was 
deeply  indebted,  and  whose  gentle  and  tolerant  judgment 
on  all  vexed  historical  questions  is  so  strongly  in  con 
trast  with  the  carping  asperities  of  these  times,  I  received 
this  characteristic  note: 

Cambridge,  September  24,  1847. 

"  I  obtained  a  copy  of  your  work  as  soon  as  it  came  out,  and 
looked  it  through,  and  read  parts  of  it  carefully.  The  opinion 
which  I  had  formed  of  the  first  volume  was  sustained  to  the  end. 
It  is  a  valuable  collection  of  new  historical  materials,  and  put  to 
gether  with  singular  good  judgment,  conveying  clear  and  accu 
rate  impressions  of  characters  and  facts.  I  know  of  no  work 
of  this  class  of  more  successful  execution.  In  my  opinion,  it  is 
a  model  of  historical  biography.  The  moderation  and  candour 
with  which  you  have  touched  upon  controverted  points,  or  rather 
the  heats  of  local  and  temporary  politics,  must  defeat  all  the  aims 
of  ill  natured  criticism,  if  any  are  disposed  to  criticise  in  this 
temper." 


IJ2 

And  he  adds,  speaking  of  the  Cadwalader  affair: 

"  I  think  you  are  quite  wise  in  letting  all  those  old  matters 
sleep.  Your  book  will  stand  on  its  merits.  It  needs  no  props." 

I  hesitate  to  add  the  following  which  gratified  me  once, 
but  which  has  no  value  now: 

"I  must  renew  to  you  my  thanks  for  your  most  valuable 
volumes.  They  form  'the  most  important  contribution  to 
American  Revolutionary  History  which  has  been  made  for  many 
years.  In  performing  a  duty  towards  the  memory  of  your  an 
cestor,  you  have  not  failed  to  do  a  good  service  to  your  country. 
Let  me  say  again  how  much  I  am  obliged  to  you  for  your 
volumes,  partly  as  a  token  of  your  regard,  still  more  as  an 
American  and  a  student  of  our  history,  happy  in  everything  that 
illustrates  it  so  elaborately  and  so  well." 

Very  truly, 

Your  obliged, 

London,  February  1st,  1848.  GEORGE  BANCROFT. 


THE    END. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED   BELOW 


RENEWED  BOOKS  ARE  SUBJECT  TO  IMMEDIATE 
RECALL 


LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  DAVIS 

Book  Slip-10m-l,'63(D5068s4)458 


26806' 

| Reed,  W.B. 

President  Reed  of 


Call  Number: 

E302.6 

R3 

Rli2 

1: 302,^ 


268067 


